When the Backups Play Better Than the Starters.

[Fan_in_Kettering]

We saw it with our own eyes, didn’t we? When Jonah Williams, Trey Hopkins, and Bobby Hart left the game due to injury the offensive line got better — and this shouldn’t be the case. Let’s carefully examine why it happened.

Why did an offensive line comprised of Fred Johnson, Michael Jordan, Billy Price, Alex Redmond, and Hakeem Adeniji show improvement over the starters? The starters get more snaps in practice so if backup players outplay the starters it means the snaps in practice are unproductive. It means the starters are practicing bad habits.

This is not a new issue with the Bengals. For decades we’ve seen backups come off the bench and outplay starters at every position. This is because all the good habits from college and from other teams haven’t been coached out of the backups yet.