In the Cincinnati Bengals‘ season-opening overtime victory against the Vikings, snap counts revealed a lot.
The depth chart does show who will start each week, but that doesn’t mean those are the only players that will take the field. Defenses must rotate to keep fresh, the same can be said about wide receivers, running backs, and tight ends on the offensive end.
Here are four snap count observations in the Bengals’ Week one win.
1. Logan Wilson is the leader at linebacker for the Bengals
Four different linebackers received snaps against the Vikings.
Logan Wilson had the most snaps at linebacker by a wide margin. Wilson had 72 snaps, which was 87% of defensive snaps, compared to Germaine Pratt getting 37 snaps, Jordan Evans and Akeem Davis-Gaither’s 16 snaps, and Markus Bailey’s one snap.
Cincinnati frequently fielded only two linebackers versus Minnesota. This was due to consistently fielding five defensive backs or five defensive linemen. Germaine Pratt also firmly established himself as the second-best linebacker for the Bengals with his snap share and solid game
Wilson getting such a large amount of snaps wasn’t surprising. First off, he has the mic on the defense so of course he’s going to play a lot. In addition, there was a lot of hype surrounding Wilson during the offseason. He should be Cincinnati’s best linebacker by far, Wilson needs all the snaps he can get.