Chiefs-Raiders snap counts: Joshua Williams sits down, Ronald Jones gets his chance

On Saturday, the Kansas City Chiefs closed out their regular season with a 31-13 win over the Las Vegas Raiders, clinching the AFC’s top postseason seed.

Let’s see how the Chiefs used their players in this dominating win.

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

Starters (defensive): DE George Karlaftis, DT Derrick Nnadi, DT Chris Jones, DE Frank Clark, LB Nick Bolton, LB Willie Gay Jr., LB Leo Chenal, CB L’Jarius Sneed, CB Trent McDuffie, S Juan Thornhill and S Justin Reid.

Did not play: All active players saw the field.

Inactive: QB Shane Buechele, K Matthew Wright, WR Mecole Hardman, WR Skyy Moore, DE Joshua Kaindoh, T Darian Kinnard and DE Malik Herring.

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Offensive takeaways

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Offensive linemen Orlando Brown Jr., Joe Thuney, Creed Humphrey, Trey Smith and Andrew Wylie played every offensive snap until there were less than five minutes left in the game. Even though left guard Thuney had been limited with an ankle injury during all of the team’s practices (and had been declared questionable for the game), he and right guard Smith stayed in for the final drive. For seven snaps, Prince Tega Wanogho played left tackle, Nick Allegretti was the center and Lucas Niang held down right tackle.

Kansas City ran seven straight running plays during that drive — five of them handoffs to reserve running back Ronald Jones. So his jump to 30% of the offensive snaps (and 46% of the rushing snaps) must be viewed through that lens. Up to that point, Jones had been in for 20% of the snaps — which was still was a higher rate of use than he’s seen all season.

Counting all snaps, 50% of the Chiefs’ plays were rushing plays — easily the highest percentage of the season. Up until the final drive, however, Kansas City had a 57/43 pass/run ratio. That’s right in line with what we have generally seen since the Week 10 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars — Pacheco’s third game as the starter.

For better or for worse, the Chiefs really have been emphasizing the run more than they typically have under head coach Andy Reid.

Starter Isiah Pacheco and third-down back Jerick McKinnon split the remaining snaps right down the middle.

At tight end — and allowing for the final drive, when Travis Kelce was on the bench and Noah Gray and Blake Bell were on the field — everyone was in their normal range of use.

At wide receiver, JuJu Smith-Schuster continues to get most of the snaps. After a spike in use against the Broncos in Week 17 (which came at the expense of Justin Watson), Marques Valdes-Scantling was back to what seems to be his typical use over the last half of the season. It would appear that we can generally expect Kadarius Toney to see about 30% of the snaps — although it’s hard to know how that might change if the Chiefs can get Mecole Hardman back on the field.

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Defensive takeaways

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Just as we have come to expect, safeties Justin Reid and Juan Thornhill — along with cornerbacks L’Jarius Sneed and Trent McDuffie — were in for every defensive play.

The Chiefs continued with the scheme they have established over the last three games: Sneed remained on the outside, while McDuffie spent about half of his snaps in the slot. When McDuffie was in the slot, rookie Jaylen Watson came in to play outside.

There was, however, one significant change from recent weeks: while he continued to play a significant role on special teams, rookie corner Joshua Williams had no defensive snaps.

Rookie safety Bryan Cook appears to be gaining the trust of the coaching staff. While he saw some significant use when Thornhill was out (and when Willie Gay Jr. was suspended), his use has been trending up in the final weeks of the season.

At the second level, Nick Bolton was on the field for every play. While still seeing a significant amount of playing time, Willie Gay Jr. had his lowest use since he was being ramped up from his suspension.

Outside of the building, Gay is seen as the athletic linebacker who should be on the field during passing downs — but the numbers consistently show a different pattern. Gay, rookie Leo Chenal and Darius Harris all tend toward being used on running plays. It appears that the Chiefs prefer Cook to play a hybrid role on passing plays. On Saturday, he split his time between lining up n the box and playing free safety.

Up front, defensive end Frank Clark left the game with a groin injury. The Chiefs mostly made up for it by giving Carlos Dunlap more snaps — but it looks like Mike Danna and George Karlaftis got a little more work, too.

Unsurprisingly, defensive tackle Chris Jones also lined up on the outside a little more often than we usually see — although his overall use remained down. We expect that in the postseason, Jones will be back to playing 80-90% of the snaps.

Khalen Saunders continues to be the main guy alongside Jones on the inside, with Derrick Nnadi and Brandon Williams taking up the rest of the snaps.

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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