Chiefs-Colts: Making sense of snap counts

The Kansas City Chiefs dropped their first game of the season to the Indianapolis Colts 19-13 on Sunday night. How did the members of the Chiefs contribute to the loss?

Starters (offensive): WR Demarcus Robinson, LT Cameron Erving, LG Andrew Wylie, C Austin Reiter, RG Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, RT Mitchell Schwartz, TE Travis Kelce, WR Sammy Watkins, QB Patrick Mahomes, RB Damien Williams and TE Blake Bell.

Starters (defensive): LDE Emmanuel Ogbah, LDT Chris Jones, RDT Derrick Nnadi, RDE Frank Clark, LB Anthony Hitchens, LB Damien Wilson, LCB Charvarius Ward, RCB Bashaud Breeland, CB Kendall Fuller, FS Juan Thornhill and SS Tyrann Mathieu.

Did not play: QB Matt Moore.

Inactive: WR Tyreek Hill, RB Darwin Thompson, LB Dorian O’Daniel, T Greg Senat, T Eric Fisher, G Nick Allegretti and DE Alex Okafor.

Editor’s Note: Arrowhead Pride obtains snap count data from the NFL’s game stats and information system, which allows us to break out snap counts by run or pass on offensive and defensive plays. Because GSIS data ignores plays that were nullified by penalties, total offensive and defensive snap counts will vary from other sources, which get their data from NFL Gamebooks

Offensive takeaways

• Starting WR Sammy Watkins tried to play through a hamstring issue, but checked out after just two plays.
• WR Byron Pringle’s workload — 44 offensive snaps — was by far the greatest of his career. Pringle made the most of his snaps, leading the Chiefs in receiving yards and scoring the game’s only touchdown. Pringle out-snapped rookie WR Mecole Hardman, 44-34.
• RB Damien Williams had the most snaps at running back in his return to the lineup with 32, ahead of both LeSean McCoy (13) and Darrel Williams (12).

Defensive takeaways

• The iron men for the Chiefs defense were CB Bashaud Breeland and S Tyrann Mathieu, who each had 74 defensive snaps for 100 percent.
• LB Ben Niemann (63 snaps) and DT Derrick Nnadi (56 snaps) had increased workloads due to the injuries of LB Anthony Hitchens and DT Xavier Williams, respectively.
• DT Khalen Saunders saw 31 defensive snaps in his Chiefs debut.
• CB Mo Claiborne said the plan was to get him about 20 defensive snaps; he had 22. Claiborne after the game: “To my understanding, that is what the plan was. I don’t believe that they were trying to allow me to get any more than 20 (plays), or something like that. The plan was to just come in, get a couple of series and just put something on film out there.”

Special teams takeaways

• S Jordan Lucas and S Daniel Sorensen shared a tie for the lead in special-teams snaps with 22. TE Blake Bell and LB Darron Lee were right behind them with 18 apiece.