Chiefs-Texans: Making sense of snap counts

The Kansas City Chiefs opened their 2020 campaign with a 34-20 victory over the Houston Texans at Arrowhead Stadium on Thursday night. Let’s take a look at how all the team’s players contributed to the game:

Starters (offensive): WR Tyreek Hill, WR Demarcus Robinson, LT Eric Fisher, LG Kelechi Osemele, C Austin Reiter, RG Andrew Wylie, RT Mitchell Schwartz, TE Travis Kelce, WR Sammy Watkins, QB Patrick Mahomes and RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire.

Starters (defensive): LDE Tanoh Kpassagnon, LDT Chris Jones, RDT Derrick Nnadi, RDE Frank Clark, LB Anthony Hitchens, LB Damien Wilson, LCB Charvarius Ward, SS Juan Thornhill, RCB L’Jarius Sneed, FS Daniel Sorensen and CB Tyrann Mathieu.

Did not play: QB Chad Henne, C Daniel Kilgore, T Mike Remmers and TE Deon Yelder.

Inactive: DB BoPete Keyes, DE Demone Harris, T Yasir Durant, TE Ricky Seals-Jones and DE Taco Charlton

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

• Just as we would expect, the starting offensive linemen played every snap together.
• Tight end Travis Kelce was off the field for about a quarter of the running snaps. As we would expect, backup tight end Nick Keizer was in on more more running snaps than passing snaps. Somewhat surprisingly, tight end Deon Yelder didn’t play.
• Running back Darrel Williams took about a third of the snaps from starter Clyde Edwards-Helaire — fairly evenly distributed between running and passing plays; it doesn’t appear the Chiefs made a special effort to keep Edwards-Helaire from having to do pass-blocking. Darwin Thompson didn’t get any offensive snaps.
• Wide receiver Demarcus Robinson had roughly twice as many snaps as Mecole Hardman — suggesting that at least for now, Robinson is first in line behind Tyreek Hill and Sammy Watkins.

Defensive takeaways

• Interestingly, the Chiefs starting defense was a 4-2-5 scheme with nominal safety Tyrann Mathieu listed as a cornerback. Among Chiefs linebackers, only Ben Niemann played more than half of the snaps.
• The Chiefs clearly weren’t afraid to put rookie cornerback L’Jarius Sneed on the field; he played 93% of the defensive snaps. After Sneed, Antonio Hamilton had the most work among the team’s cornerbacks — although part of that was because starter Charvarius Ward missed snaps after he was injured.
• Safety Tedric Thompson played about a third of the snaps — mostly on passing plays.
• Fifth-round draft pick Michael Danna was on the field for about half of the snaps. Undrafted free agent rookie Tershawn Wharton was in for about a quarter of them.

Special teams takeaways

• Linebacker Dorian O’Daniel, fullback Anthony Sherman and safety Armani Watts led the team in special teams snaps; it’s clear that both O’Daniel and Watts made the 53 on the basis of special teams.
• As expected, rookie linebacker Willie Gay Jr. was used extensively on special teams — although he didn’t see a single defensive snap.
• Despite plenty of snaps elsewhere, Hamilton and Niemann had lots of work with the special teams.