Each week after every Bucs game, we’ll take a closer look at the snap count distribution for the Tampa Bay offense and defense. We’ll assess what we can learn from who played the most and least from the game.

Here is a closer look at which players received the highest and lowest number of snaps in the Bucs’ 34-23 loss at home on Sunday afternoon against the Bengals in Week 15.

Bucs Offense

The biggest discrepancy you’ll see from the offense is that Leonard Fournette played in 43 out of 74 snaps while rookie Rachaad White had just 29. Fournette was solid with 10 rushes for 44 yards and four catches for 30 yards, but to play that much more than White? I don’t know about that. The duo had split the snaps nearly 50-50 since Fournette’s return from injury, but this was one of the most lopsided numbers since before White burst onto the scene against the Seahawks weeks ago.

Bucs WR Russell Gage – Photo by: USA Today

At wide receiver, Russell Gage saw a lot more playing time with Julio Jones out. He was involved in 46 snaps, good for 62 percent of the time and had his moments in the game with two touchdowns. This was Gage’s best game since coming back from an early season hamstring injury.

While he tied the team lead in the game with eight receptions, his average yards per reception was 7.4, which was lower than Mike Evans (16.6 avg.), Cam Brate (12.5 avg.) Chris Godwin (10.4 avg.) and Leonard Fournette (7.5 avg.) among the players who made more than one reception. Not listed is Cade Otton, who made one catch for 20 yards despite having 19 more snaps than Brate. For whatever reason, the Bucs still don’t target him enough.

Rookie Deven Thompkins got more playing time than veterans Scotty Miller and Breshad Perriman. The Bucs even utilized him in the offense on an end around that went for nine rushing yards. He later on made a catch in garbage time for seven yards. The speedy Thompkins might be used in a couple of wrinkles on offense over the Bucs’ next three games.

Bucs Defense

Bucs S Antoine Winfield Jr. – Photo by: USA Today

Whatever hip injury Joe Tryon-Shoyinka was dealing with during the week didn’t seem to bother him on Sunday, as he played 66 snaps on the defense. The Bucs needed he and Anthony Nelson to play every snap at outside linebacker with Carl Nassib and Genard Avery out, which they did – even splitting a sack.

Rakeem “Nacho” Nunez-Roches had the most snaps out of the interior defensive lineman with 43. Will Gholston and rookie Logan Hall both played 21 snaps despite Vita Vea being out. You would think there would be more of a rotation but the Bucs stuck to their usual plan. Deadrin Senat had 14 snaps, while Pat O’Connor had nine.

We saw a number of players return from the secondary, but not all the playing time was equally distributed. Sean Murphy-Bunting, who was filling in for Jamel Dean, understandably played the whole game. Mike Edwards has played every snap in other weeks, but his 48 snaps were the same as Keanu Neal, as they rotated.

Antoine Winfield Jr. made his return but that high ankle injury took him out for a portion of the afternoon, limiting him to just 18 total snaps. This gave more playing time to Dee Delaney, as he got in for 33 snaps at slot corner.