Chiefs-Broncos snap counts: Bell and Gay start; Hardman takes a back seat

The Kansas City Chiefs extended their record to 11-1 and claimed a postseason berth in a 22-16 victory over the Denver Broncos at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday night.

Let’s take a look at how the Chiefs used their players in the victory.

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Starters (offensive): WR Tyreek Hill, LT Eric Fisher, LG Nick Allegretti, C Austin Reiter, RG Andrew Wylie, RT Mike Remmers, TE Travis Kelce, QB Patrick Mahomes, WR Sammy Watkins, RB Le’Veon Bell and WR Demarcus Robinson.

Starters (defensive): LDE Tanoh Kpassagnon, LDT Chris Jones, RDT Derrick Nnadi, RDE Frank Clark, LB Anthony Hitchens, LB Damien Wilson, LB Willie Gay Jr., LCB Charvarius Ward, RCB Bashaud Breeland, FS Daniel Sorensen and SS Tyrann Mathieu.

Did not play: QB Chad Henne, RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire, G Stefen Wisniewski and C Daniel Kilgore.

Inactive: CB BoPete Keyes, LB Darius Harris, T Martinas Rankin, TE Ricky Seals-Jones, DE Tim Ward and DT Khalen Saunders.

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Offensive takeaways

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Despite the presence of Martinas Rankin and Stefen Wisniewski on the game-day roster, the Chiefs stood pat with their offensive line. Eric Fisher, Nick Allegretti, Austin Reiter, Andrew Wylie and Mike Remmers (still subbing for Mitchell Schwartz) played every offensive snap.

At tight end, Travis Kelce, Nick Keizer and Deon Yelder all saw normal usage..

After missing a couple of practice days due to illness, nominal starting running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire was active for the game — but was kept on the sidelines. Le’Veon Bell and Darrel Williams had all the snaps. Each had their highest usage of the season.

Wide receivers Tyreek Hill, Sammy Watkins and Demarcus Robinson were all listed as starters for the game, but the Chiefs didn’t have all of them on the field for every snap. While Hill and Watkins had normal usage, Robinson’s use was down a bit and Hardman had his lowest usage on both offense and special teams since Week 1.

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Defensive takeaways

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In the secondary, safeties Tyrann Mathieu and Daniel Sorensen — along with cornerbacks Bashaud Breeland Charvarius Ward — started the game and played every snap. In his new role as a nickel corner, L’Jarius Sneed’s use continued to trend up. At safety, Juan Thornhill’s defensive usage declined.

Anthony Hitchens, Damien Wilson and Willie Gay Jr. were all listed as starting linebackers. Hitchens saw normal use, while — as usual — other linebacker usage varied widely as compared to previous games. Gay’s special-teams use declined — and for the first time this season, was used equally often on running and passing plays.

At defensive end, Frank Clark had nominal use. Alex Okafor got back to his pre-injury usage rate, while Michael Danna and Tanoh Kpassagnon filled the rest of the snaps — although Kpassagnon’s use (even after being listed as a starter) dropped to a season-low level.

On the defensive interior, Chris Jones received his usual snaps — and we again have week-to-week variance among the other tackles.

By the way... once-promising second-year defensive tackle Khalen Saunders — who was on injured reserve for five weeks earlier in the season — has now spent the five weeks since then as a game-day inactive. On Monday, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid was asked if Saunders still wasn’t quite ready to play.

“That — and some of the other guys in there have done OK,” replied Reid. “You put one up, you’ve got to put one down. That’s one of the negatives when you get injured: somebody steps in and does pretty good. That’s what goes on. He’s definitely a good football player — and his time will come.”

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Data

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Offense

Defense

Special Teams

All Snaps

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