Chiefs-Bills snap counts: wide receiver depth chart comes into focus

In Week 6, the Kansas City Chiefs hosted the Buffalo Bills, losing 24-20 — and falling to 4-2 on the season.

Let’s take a look at how Kansas City used its players on Sunday afternoon.

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Starters (offensive): TE Travis Kelce, TE Noah Gray, LT Orlando Brown Jr., LG Joe Thuney, C Creed Humphrey, RG Trey Smith, RT Andrew Wylie, WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling, WR JuJu Smith-Schuster, QB Patrick Mahomes and RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire.

Starters (defensive): DE George Karlaftis, DT Derrick Nnadi, DT Chris Jones, DE Frank Clark, LB Nick Bolton, LB Darius Harris, LB Leo Chenal, CB L’Jarius Sneed, CB Jaylen Watson, S Juan Thornhill and S Justin Reid.

Did not play: QB Chad Henne.

Inactive: RB Ronald Jones, S Bryan Cook, QB Shane Buechele, CB Rashad Fenton, DE Joshua Kaindoh, T Darian Kinnard and DT Taylor Stallworth.

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Offensive takeaways

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Starting offensive linemen Orlando Brown Jr., Joe Thuney, Creed Humphrey, Trey Smith and Andrew Wylie were in for every offensive snap. This is the first game of the season in which backup offensive lineman Nick Allegretti had no offensive snaps at all. He was backing up injured players in two of the six games so far, but had a few snaps as a sixth lineman in the other three games.

Fullback Michael Burton also had his lowest percentage of use this season. Tight end Noah Gray was on the low side of his normal use. It doesn’t appear as if the Chiefs went out of their way to provide the offensive line any extra help with blocking.

Rookie running back Isiah Pacheco’s use was up just a bit from his season-low against the Las Vegas Raiders — at the expense of Jerick McKinnon. Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s use remained steady.

By the way... if you were hoping (or expecting) the Chiefs would run the ball more often against the Bills, there’s bad news: they didn’t. Sunday’s 70/30 pass/run ratio was right in the normal range for Andy Reid’s Chiefs teams.

With the sixth game of the season behind us, the pecking order (and normal ranges of use) among the wide receivers is finally getting pretty clear: JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling are the starters, followed by Mecole Hardman, Skyy Moore and Justin Watson. Despite the preseason hype about the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers wideout, he’s being used more like a reserve than an additional weapon.

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Defensive takeaways

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As usual, the starting safeties Juan Thornhill and Justin Reid (and starting cornerbacks L’Jarius Sneed and Jaylen Watson) played nearly every defensive snap. Joshua Williams stepped in as the outside corner when Sneed was in the slot, getting 75% of the snaps.

At the second level, Nick Bolton was again on the field for every one of the defensive snaps — which has now happened in four straight games. This is something that never happened with his predecessor Anthony Hitchens. With Willie Gay Jr. back in the mix in Week 7, this may change a little — but not much. Meanwhile, Darius Harris’ use trended up a bit — rookie Leo Chenal’s trended down. Harris continued a four-week trend where he was used more often against the run.

Up front, Kansas City gave defensive end Michael Danna plenty of reps in his return from injury. That allowed the Chiefs to get veteran Carlos Dunlap back into his range and give rookie George Karlaftis some time on the sidelines. After taking sick during the Las Vegas game, Frank Clark was back in his normal range — along with Malik Herring, who got some extra work when Clark left the game in Week 5.

On the interior, Kansas City was taking no chances: Chris Jones was in for almost every defensive snap. Both Derrick Nnadi and Khalen Saunders were in their normal ranges. Without Tershawn Wharton, the Chiefs handled the situation in much the same way they did after he was injured early in the Week 5 game: by sometimes putting another edge rusher on the inside. Against the Bills, the Chiefs averaged 2.25 defensive ends and 1.72 defensive tackles on every snap.

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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