How the Bengals chose to use their talent.

The season is finally underway. Looking at the team’s usage of personnel in Week 1 can help us understand how they plan to use players this season. So let’s take a look.

Perhaps the most troubling thing about this week’s snap counts is who doesn’t appear on the list. The Bengals had two third-round picks a year ago, and both were healthy scratches for the season opener.

Jermaine Burton yielded the final active receiver spot to newcomer Mitchell Tinsley, the latter took 5 snaps on offense and 4 on special teams. After a very distracted rookie season off the field, Burton seems to be more focused, or at least making fewer headlines, in 2025. Could this simply be a matter of Tinsley being more suited to the Tee Higgins role and Higgins having a history of soft tissue issues, or is it more?

There have been some red flags for McKinnley lately. First, he was getting work later into preseason games than you’d expect, and after undrafted rookies. Then the team initially kept six defensive tackles, and when they lost Eric Gregory through the waivers process, they went out and got an experienced vet in Mike Pennel.

Staring nose tackle TJ Slaton played 34 snaps, which accounted for 45% of the Bengals’ defensive plays. Pennel played 22 snaps, which is oddly consistent with what he did for the Chiefs a year ago.

At three-technique, defensive captain BJ Hill led the way with 45 snaps while second-year player Kris Jenkins took 37. Jenkins is on a much better trajectory than his classmate, Jackson. He looked impressive and demonstrated why he was nicknamed “The Mutant” in college.

On the edge, Joseph Ossai got the start opposite Trey Hendrickson. Hendrickson took 75% of defensive snaps, totaling 57 plays, and Ossai played 63% or 48 plays. Rookie Shemar Stewart was next with 37 snaps, which was nearly half of all defensive snaps. This would seem to indicate that he and not Myles Murphy (who plays only 22 snaps) is the heir apparent to 2026 potential free agent Joseph Ossai.

One rookie played more defensive snaps than Stewart or any other defensive end. That was Demetrius Knight. He played 58 snaps, second only to Logan Wilson’s 64 snaps (84%). Oren Burks was next on the list with 22 snaps. Another rookie, Barrett Carter, saw 14 defensive snaps. Carter also played 17 snaps of special teams, which was 74% of the unit’s total snaps. Burks, however, led the team with 20 snaps of special teams. Fellow linebacker Shaka Heyward took 16 special teams snaps.

While Dax Hill has moved inside to the slot corner position, he is still one of the top two cornerbacks. Hill and Cam Taylor-Britt each took 74 of 76 defensive snaps. The third cornerback is a combination of DJ Turner, who took 61% of the snaps, and Josh Newton, who played 38% of the snaps.

The addition of Noah Fant appears to have cut into Mike Gesicki’s reps at tight end. Gesicki took 16 snaps compared to Fant’s 26. Of course, leading the group was Drew Sample with 36.