Bengals snap counts show defense didn’t mix it up against Jets

We are now at that part of the week where we try and decipher exactly how the Cincinnati Bengals dropped a game against the New York Jets. There are a few interesting things we can try to decode from the snap counts this week, so let's dive on into the numbers.

Snap count takeaways from the Bengals loss to the Jets

Bengals couldn’t sustain drive or stop them

The Bengals ran a total of 64 plays while the Jets had 84. That is a pretty drastic difference. Sometimes it isn’t as big of a deal, but it helps illustrate what we all saw on Sunday. Although, it isn’t as simple as saying the Bengals couldn’t convert third downs while the Jets did.

It is a matter of the Bengals not being able to get first downs at the same rate the Jets did. Cincinnati had 18 first downs on Sunday while the Jets had 32. You have to be practically perfect on offense to overcome that sort of discrepancy, and Cincinnati was far from that on Sunday.

Vanilla defense

This season, we have really seen defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo play around with the variety of defensive players he has on the second and third level. Think of it this way, Jessie Bates, Vonn Bell, Chido Awuzie and Eli Apple pretty much play the entire game. In fact, they all combined missed a single snap this week.

The real area we saw some playing around with came from the other three defenders behind the defensive line. Logan Wilson (80) and Mike Hilton (66) usually lead that pack as Hilton is the team’s slot corner, and Wilson has the green dot on his helmet to relay defensive play calls.

However, what we didn’t see was a nice mix between the rest of the defenders in Germaine Pratt (56) Akeem Davis-Gaither (20) and Ricardo Allen (9). It seems like a small thing, but considering most of the Jets’ offensive game plan centered around attacking right where these guys were defending, it may have come into play later in the game when we same missed tackle after missed tackle. It also doesn’t help that this was the third straight road game this defense played.

The defensive line rotation was also shortened up quite a bit. While Sam Hubbard (72) and Trey Hendrickson (77) normally play most of the game, we haven’t really seen this defense go nearly 80 snaps in a game this season.

The area it was really shortened up was in the middle. D.J. Reader (58) and Larry Ogunjobi (62) played about as much as they had in the previous two games combined.

Noteworthy observations

• It was nice to see Khalid Kareem return. He played 12 snaps, but apparently his presence made Wyatt Ray and Darius Hodge both healthy scratches on the day.
• Stanley Morgan — special team star — got seven snaps on offense. This was really the first time he had seen that kind of action all season. Also, Darius Phillips played a single snap of defense when Awuzie went out for a play.

What was your takeaway from Sunday’s loss?