Of course it offers a benefit. During ignition the rod pushes against the crankshaft and the only thing that keeps the two from hitting is oil.
Lets say there's 100PSI between the two (nice even number) and you increase your loaded bearing area 15%.... the result is a proportional increase in protection. PSI is 'pounds per square inch'. Any time you increase your square inches, you can either tolerate more load safely, handle the same load with less oil pressure... or a combination of the two.
The other benefit is moving the edges of the load closer to the sides of the journal. That will remove some of the rods tendency to try and bend the crank in the middle of the journal. Image our crank journals are 10 feet wide and the rod is 1/2" pushing right in the middle. It will take X amount of force to bend it.
Now image the 10 foot crank journal has a 9.75' wide rod/bearing pushing down on it. It will much much harder to bend that same journal.