Bengals vs. Ravens snap count takeaways: Defensive rotation not enough to stop Baltimore

The Bengals’ latest loss to the Ravens was hard to watch. It is rare an NFL team can almost openly toy with their opponent so comfortably, but we all got to see it happen to Cincinnati on Sunday.

There were a few things that changed over the bye week, but the overwhelming trend is that it probably wasn’t enough of a change for a team that came into the week 0-8. This team needs to be evaluating young talent, and they are struggling with that concept at points.

Here are the snap count takeaways from the Bengals loss to the Ravens:

• The Bengals had a victory in out snapping the Ravens by running 75 plays to only 47. The huge asterisks of course is the Bengals had a couple extra drives because Baltimore had two defensive touchdowns. Also, Cincinnati had to grind their way down field while the Ravens had big play after big play.
• One of the weirdest things about doing this week’s snaps was not having numbers next to Andy Dalton. Rookie quarterback Ryan Finley played every snap, and he took his rookie lumps a few times. He had some really nice plays, but he also had two tough turnovers that led directly to two touchdowns. Fans should probably get accustomed to the ups and downs of rooting for a rookie quarterback.
• The wide receivers had an interesting split this week. Tyler Boyd (66) wasn’t the top receiver in snaps. Auden Tate (75) played every snap, and Alex Erickson (38) and Stanley Morgan (38) bot played roughly half the game. Boyd did lead the group with six catches for 62 yards, though.
• There weren’t as many defensive snaps to go around, but the fact that Germaine Pratt (23) is still playing less than half of the snaps is pretty frustrating. Nick Vigil (44) is still playing most of the game, but Preston Brown (17) has seen his playing time drop as well. It is also interesting that we saw a Jordan Evans (11) appearance. It is just weird that the team decided they needed to figure out what they have in Finley at quarterback, but they are still wary of leaning into playing Pratt.
• Apparently, the Bengals also got a look at what the right side of the offensive line would look like without Bobby Hart (63) as he was the only offensive lineman who didn’t play every snap. We saw Andre Smith (12) take some snaps there, and rookie Michael Jordan played five snaps as an extra tight end along the line, so it was good to see him get back into the mix.
• Something weird happened at cornerback. The Bengals were without Dre Kirkpatrick again, but we also saw William Jackson III (24) and Darqueze Dennard (17) barely played half the game. We saw B.W. Webb (43) nearly played the whole game. The Bengals also played Brandon Wilson (26) a ton, and that could’ve been due to how they tried to defend the Ravens offense. It was strange to see them take Jackson off the field so much, but it could’ve had something to do with missed tackles. As you’d expect it didn’t matter much looking at the final score.
• This was also one of the first games where most of the defensive ends were healthy. Carlos Dunlap (33) and Sam Hubbard (38) were the main guys to receive snaps. Carl Lawson (21) didn’t get as much run, but it is hard to get Lawson on the field when you can’t get the opposing team into passing situations. Andrew Brown (3) and Anthony Zettel (8) also weren’t needed as much with the very few snaps the defense had to take.