Snap counts: Bengals unleash pressure package in win over Jets

The Cincinnati Bengals finally were able to get a win after their trip to play the New York Jets. It was one where we saw a different game script play out. That also has given us a look into how this defense and offense can deal out snaps differently when they aren’t playing catch up the whole game.

Total plays

The Bengals ran 68 plays to the Jets 78. It is pretty eerie how close some of the stats between these teams were. Cincinnati had 330 net yards of offense while New York had 328. The Bengals had 20 first downs while converting seven of their 14 third-down attempts. The Jets had 19 first downs while converting seven of their 18 third-down attempts.

So, why was the score so lopsided? Turnovers and big plays. The Tyler Boyd touchdown where he spun off a big hit for a touchdown. Points from short drives tend to skew these things. Joe Flacco also had four turnovers on the day, which means more than a few sustained drives ended with nothing.

Tight end merry-go-round

The first two weeks the snaps at tight end were split between Drew Sample and Hayden Hurst. This week the team was without Sample and Hurst was questionable and clearly limited this week as he played only 26 snaps. We saw plenty of Mitchell Wilcox (39) and the debut of Devin Asiasi where he played 24 offensive snaps. The tight end position ended up with two catches on three targets for 16 yards, but they obviously contribute more as blockers than anything else.

We will have to see if Hurst’s lower snaps were due to his injury or Asiasi making his debut.

The pressure package

The common theme from the first two weeks was the Bengals being behind the game script. That leads to very few instances where the opposing team are forced to drop back on a consistent basis. This week Cincinnati got an early lead, and we saw some more from the defensive line who are better at getting to the quarterback.

First, we saw Trey Hendrickson (46) get rotated out more. Sam Hubbard (57) still played close to that 80 percent of plays that we usually see from those two. Joseph Ossai got unleashed playing 40 snaps. Cam Sample (31) and Zach Carter (27) also played a good chunk of plays. We even saw Ossai lineup inside of Hendrickson for a few plays, so things got very interesting there.

Use of extra offensive lineman continues

Last week, we saw D’Ante Smith get a handful of snaps as a sixth offensive lineman. This week, Hakeem Adeniji got 13 snaps, which was a fair bit. It seems like the team is still very much into getting creative in their protection and trying to get their running game going.

Akeem Davis-Gaither fills in

Germaine Pratt missed this week due to injury, which saw Davis-Gaither (54) take over as the second linebacker beside Logan Wilson for the entire game. Davis-Gaither usually rotated with Pratt based on situations.

What was interesting was that we didn’t see more of Dax Hill (5) with Davis-Gaither not taking up that 11th defender spot that is split between them and Mike Hilton. Hilton played played 76 snaps, which was practically the entire game.

It is interesting that we haven’t seen more of Hill in any capacity, but it is hard to get upset when the team plays this well and gets a win.

What was your biggest takeaway from the Bengals win?

Follow our Twitter page and ‘like’ our Facebook page for the latest Cincinnati Bengals news and views.