Jonathan Allen, one of the Bengals' new defensive tackles who wreaked havoc on the NFC East before eyeing the AFC North this season, had to smile after one of the spring practices.

How many snaps are too many?

"That's always a question, isn't it?" Allen asked. "It's a fine balance. I always tell people, when it comes to athletes, everybody needs somebody to protect them from themselves. Because if you ask me in the moment, I don't want to come out."

But, yes. He agrees. Those 811 snaps (76% of the plays) he took last year in Minnesota during his lone year with the Vikings were too many. It was the second most of his career and, dating back to when the NFL began keeping snap counts in 2012, it would have been the second most by a Bengals tackle behind only the 816 of Ring of Honor nominee Geno Atkins in 2019 and B.J. Hill in 2022.

The Vikes moved on from Allen after he had his fewest sacks (3.5), tackles for loss (seven) and QB hits (11) in a full season since 2020.

There were reasons for that, starting with the style of defense that wasn't necessarily a fit for him. But the good news here for Allen, 31, is that Hill, also 31, is back for a sixth Bengals season. Hill is joined by his fellow Giant, three-time Pro Bowler Dexter Lawrence II. Kris Jenkins Jr. also returns for a third season, so there's not another 800-snap season in the offing for Allen. And he's fine with that.

Why not? When he had his monster Pro Bowl season in 2021 of nine sacks and 30 quarterback hits, he took about 40 fewer snaps for the Commanders. In his eight-sack season in 2018, he logged 779.

But then again, when he had 802 snaps in 2022 for a career-high 82% of the snaps, he went to another Pro Bowl with 7.5 sacks, 16 TFLs and 17 QB hits.

Allen knows, though, in year 10, less can be more.

"Looking at it from the big picture, it's obvious it's better not to play that many snaps," Allen said. "So me and the trainers, me and the coaches, we just have a great understanding. Sometimes, I get emotional in the heat of the moment and I don't want to come out. But at the end of the day, I get paid to do a job and they trust me and I trust them. It has to be a give and take relationship."

Less has been more for Hill, who has led Bengals' D-Tackles in plays for four of the last five years. In the one year he finished behind Larry Ogunjobi and had 502 snaps, Hill had arguably his best season in the Super Bowl run with a career-high 5.5 sacks and his second-most QB hits (12) and TFLs (six). He hasn't played fewer than 670 snaps since, and last year he did it while gutting through a battered ankle in true captain form. He should be near the 500-snap mark again, which in '21 meant about 50% of the plays.

How many snaps are just right for Jonathan Allen?

"I would say anywhere between 50 to 80 percent," Allen said. "I know that's kind of a wide range. But sometimes a defense can't play a whole bunch in the first half and then they play more late in the game. But 800 snaps are too much."

Told playing 811 snaps at age 30 shows he's got plenty of juice, Allen smiled again:

"Amen, amen."

Aggressive Offseason Moves Echo the Past

It's nice to see Bengals executive president Katie Blackburn and director of player personnel Duke Tobin get well-deserved praise for such a noteworthy offseason. But the breathless groundbreaking-trend-busting-franchise-firsts narratives are a bit curious.

It's not like these guys just got hit by lightning.

Before the biggest acquisitions of this offseason were born (Allen in 1995, Lawrence in 1997, Bryan Cook in 1999), Blackburn had done cutting-edge contracts that included the new voidable years concept in the richest NFL deals ever for consecutive No. 1 overall picks Dan Wilkinson and K-Jana Carter in 1994 and 1995, as well as helped hammer out a stadium lease when not many thought possible. That's 21 years before a Joe Burrow restructure.

Before drafting Burrow in 2020, the Bengals' most significant move of the century had been the hiring of Marvin Lewis as head coach in 2003, the year Cashius Howell, this year's first draft pick, was born. Lewis, the former Pittsburgh and Baltimore assistant, caught them up with the division and the league by winning four AFC North titles. Blackburn and husband Troy were key figures in bringing in Lewis, who was basically the first head coaching hire out of the organization.

And Tobin was on the ground floor of building the Bengals' most successful run pre-Burrow. The guy who oversaw the drafting of playoff heroes Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Evan McPherson, became Bengals president Mike Brown's chief lieutenant in the draft room with the club that went to five straight playoffs the decade before.

Ring of Honor nominees A.J. Green, Geno Atkins and Carlos Dunlap were draft picks, and so were two others, Andrew Whitworth and Leon Hall, a few years earlier. Long before 2020, Tobin was a big part of the 2001 and 2006 drafts that were among the best anywhere.

'01 yielded franchise record breakers Justin Smith, Chad Johnson, Rudi Johnson and T.J. Houshmandzadeh, and '06 had three players (Whitworth, Johnathan Joseph and Domata Peko) who were still playing in 2020.

And, a decade before Joe Flacco, Tobin was there in 2017 with another October Surprise with Cleveland. When the Bengals had a trade deadline fleece of the Browns that famously got sabotaged with a paperwork snafu. Remember AJ McCarron for a 2018 second- and third-round pick?

And eight years before Dexter Lawrence II, Tobin tried some first-round trade magic when he swapped picks with the Bills and emerged with the left tackle that they needed in Cordy Glenn. It worked nicely on paper but never came to fruition with Glenn's spate of injuries. Imagine the perception of that deal if the Lions didn't pick center Frank Ragnow right in front of them.

So, it's not like 2026 came out of nowhere. Sure, there's urgency. But they've done a lot of this stuff before.

The Return of High Octane Offense

A big theme of training camp, sparked by Burrow's musings, is his offense getting back to its 2021 and 2022 explosiveness. The Athletic's Paul Dehner Jr. has been all over this subject, centered around being under center. As Dehner has noted, lately the most explosive teams in the league are using a steady diet of under-center stuff to unleash play-action and big plays out of run looks.

Over the years, head coach Zac Taylor has done close to the impossible by marrying Burrow's shotgun style with a run game working behind an ever-changing offensive line. Now that the O-Line is one of the most stable units on the club and tight end Erick All Jr., is expected back, look out.

Burrow, the fledgling Athens High astrophysicist, showed just how smart he is as he discussed the evolution of his offense last week.

"We were heavy under center 2020, 2021 and that worked out well for us," Burrow said. "But then we were so explosive that we stopped getting the defenses that the under center runs and the under center play-actions were built for. And then we weren't explosive in the run game when we faced those light box defenses.

"Then we transitioned to a gun team and our run game because our RPOs and our quick game, basically. And the run game was kind of the icing on the cake because of that. And that was effective for a couple of years. And then around 2024, we got so good at just picking people apart underneath and just marching the ball down the field that we started getting some more of the 2021 defenses. So now we have to get back to making people play for playing that way against us. That will, in turn, then create that cycle again where we're explosive and teams play a certain kind of defense. And then we'll be better equipped this time to be more explosive in the run game to try to take advantage of that."

Predicting 2026 Training Camp Headlines

• How wide receiver Andrei Iosivas engineered a bounce-back year.
• The O-line versatility of homegrown sixth-round pick Brian Parker II.
• How the reconfigured defensive front makes linebackers Barrett Carter and Demetrius Knight Jr. unrecognizable.
• Ryan Rehkow is the NFL's best punter you don't know.
• No matter where Dax Hill plays in the secondary, he's quietly one of their best defensive players.
• Rookie cornerback Tacario Davis and his 6-4 frame tower as one of the early camp buzzes when the pads come on.