Eagles-Bengals snap counts: Nolan Smith is producing while being trusted to play more often

Playing time analysis.

The official snap counts from the Philadelphia Eagles’ Week 8 win over the Cincinnati Bengals are in! Let’s take a look and run through some analysis.

OFFENSE

• Grant Calcaterra played the highest snap count percentage of his career. His 58 receiving yards were his second-most from any game, just behind the 67 he had against the Cleveland Browns a couple weeks ago. Calcaterra is up to 186 yards in seven games this season after only having 120 in his first 30 career games played.
• Offensive line notes: Fred Johnson played the entire game at left tackle and did a great job of holding up against Trey Hendrickson. Cam Jurgens also played the entire game. Landon Dickerson, Tyler Steen, and Lane Johnson were pulled for rest late in the game. Darian Kinnard came in at left guard, Nick Gates came in at right guard, and Jack Driscoll came in at right tackle. Driscoll also logged a snap when Johnson had a brief injury scare earlier in the game.
• DeVonta Smith’s production bounced back after having negative two receiving yards in Week 7. Smitty led the Birds in targets (7), receptions (6), yards (85), and touchdowns (1).
• A.J. Brown had his lowest receiving total of any game this season. He only managed to catch five of his six targets for 84 yards and three first downs. What a bum.
• Saquon Barkley logged his second-highest snap count percentage this season. He had his third-most touches with 23 total. Seven of them came on the Eagles’ penultimate drive as they were aiming to run clock on a long scoring drive.
• Good amount of 12 personnel in this game with Jack Stoll logging 57% of the snaps as the second tight end. That was his third-highest snap count percentage this season. Stoll’s six-yard reception brought him up to two catches for 10 yards in 2024.
• Jahan Dotson played his third-lowest snap count percentage this season. He did not log a target in this game. Dotson’s been targeted once for zero catches in his last two games. He has six grabs for 35 yards in seven games thus far.
• Kenny Gainwell played his second-lowest snap count percentage. He had his second-most touches, though, with five. Gainwell took over for Barkley on the Eagles’ final drive. But he had to come out due to a cleat issue.
• Ainias Smith played eight snaps in his NFL debut. Some of that was garbage time action but not all of it. He did not play any special teams snaps. The Eagles didn’t force a punt, so, it’s unclear if he would’ve been returning punt instead of Cooper DeJean. The feeling here is that the Eagles should not have Smith return since he regularly struggled to catch punts cleanly during offseason practices.
• Smith played more than fellow rookie receiver Johnny Wilson.
• Ben VanSumeren saw more snaps as a fullback late in the game.
• Will Shipley had a 17-yard touchdown run called back due to a hold on Gates. Still showed good burst and toughness to run through contact.

DEFENSE

• Zack Baun led the Eagles in total tackles (12) and solo tackles (8) as the Eagles’ top linebacker. He also had the first forced fumble of his career.
• Cooper DeJean played his second-highest snap count percentage. The Eagles should keep playing a lot of nickel to keep him on the field.
• Jalen Carter led all Eagles defensive linemen in snaps played and logged a QB hit. He has six QB hits over his last three games.
• Darius Slay left the game early due to a groin injury and did not return. His status will be worth monitoring on this week’s injury reports. Slay had a great pass breakup in the end zone that saved four points.
• Josh Sweat did not log a stat. He appeared to get some good pressures but failed to seal the deal on them.
• Nolan Smith played his highest snap count percentage this season and the second-highest of his career. In this game, he had the second-most snaps of any Eagles edge rusher and third-most of any defensive lineman. The 2023 first-round pick had a good pass rush win against 2024 first-round pick Amarius Mims to log half a sack on Joe Burrow. Smith is up to 2.5 sacks over his last three games after only logging one sack as a rookie. The light seems to be going on for the 23-year-old.
• Milton Williams helped Smith get Burrow down to log half a sack after Smith did the heavy lifting on the play. Both Williams and Moro Ojomo played more often than Jordan Davis, which is disappointing from a resource-allocation perspective. But Vic Fangio is correct to not care about how a player was acquired when it comes to how often they should play. And Davis seemed to do well against a Bengals rushing attack that struggled to ever get going; Cincy’s running backs gained just 43 yards on 17 carries (2.5 average).
• Bryce Huff had two assisted tackles, one solo. He played his second-lowest snap count percentage this season.
• Brandon Graham’s snap count was nearly identical to Huff’s. BG had two solo tackles, including the big third down stop prior to the Eagles’ fourth down stop for a turnover on downs.
• Isaiah Rodgers came in after Slay got hurt and filled in admirably, creating the Eagles’ third takeaway this season with a deflection that was caught by C.J. Gardner-Johnson.
• Avonte Maddox once again saw some limited playing time in dime. The Bengals appeared to go after him.
• Kelee Ringo, Oren Burks, Sydney Brown, Tristin McCollum, Jeremiah Trotter Jr., and Jalyx Hunt got to see some garbage time snaps with the Bengals pulling Burrow for Jake Browning.

SPECIAL TEAMS

• Braden Mann played 16 ST snaps, Rick Lovato played 8 ST snaps, and Jake Elliott played 7 ST snaps.

DID NOT PLAY

INACTIVE: Dallas Goedert, Mekhi Becton, Eli Ricks, Tanner McKee, Trevon Keegan

ACTIVE: Kenny Pickett

• With the Eagles not putting Goedert on IR before last week’s game, they’re seemingly hoping to have him back by Week 10 against the Dallas Cowboys at the latest.
• Becton might be able to return for Week 9’s game. Does he automatically get this starting job back or might the Eagles stick with Steen?
• Ricks isn’t providing much value as a seventh cornerback who doesn’t really help on special teams.
• Keegan is on pace to be a healthy scratch all season long.
• Pickett actually got on the field when Jalen Hurts was having an issue getting his cleat back on. He had to be prepared to take a snap if Hurts wasn’t able to get back in. But Hurts did manage to get a replacement cleat on in time to tell Pickett to get out of there.