Chiefs-Vikings snap counts: Toney trends up, while Rice and Chenal trend down

In the NFL’s Week 5, the Kansas City Chiefs earned a road win against the Minnesota Vikings.

Let’s see how the team used its players in the season’s fourth victory.

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Starters (offensive): WR Skyy Moore, TE Travis Kelce, LT Donovan Smith, LG Joe Thuney, C Creed Humphrey, RG Trey Smith, RT Jawaan Taylor, 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 Michael Danna, LB Willie Gay Jr., LB Drue Tranquill, LB Leo Chenal, CB Trent McDuffie, CB L’Jarius Sneed, S Justin Reid and S Bryan Cook.

Did not play: QB Blaine Gabbert.

Inactive: LB Nick Bolton, DE BJ Thompson, OL Mike Caliendo, DT Matt Dickerson and DT Keondre Coburn.

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Offensive takeaways

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Run vs. Pass

After two weeks in which Kansas City was close to a 50/50 split between passing and running plays, the team was back in familiar territory on Sunday afternoon: passing on two out of three plays (67%) in the game. On its first drive, the team ran the ball on four of nine snaps, but didn’t stick to that ratio. When leading in the fourth quarter, the Chiefs did lean into the running game — but with limited success.

Swing tackle

For the second straight week, both Lucas Niang and Wanya Morris were active, replacing Prince Tega Wanogho, who is now on the Reserve/Injured. Neither one had any offensive snaps, but both split special-teams snaps with starters Donovan Smith and Jawaan Taylor; all four accumulated five snaps in Dave Toubs units.

Replacing Travis Kelce

Despite starting tight end Travis Kelce missing some time late in the first half (and in the first drive of the third quarter), reserve tight end Noah Gray’s offensive snaps (66%) were pretty much in their normal range — as were those of tight end Blake Bell (30%). It appears the team chose to cover Kelce’s absence by putting an additional receiver on the field; on the opening drive of the second half, wideouts Justin Watson and Rashee Rice turned in the kinds of plays we would normally see Kelce make.

Running back shares

Running back Isiah Pacheco was once again used more like a bell cow back than we have typically seen under head coach Andy Reid. His snaps seem to be settling in at around 60% — while Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s seem like they’ll consistently be below 20% and Jerick McKinnon’s have been right at 30% all season.

Wide receiver shares

Marquez Valdes-Scantling (66%) and Skyy Moore (56%) continued to top the wide receivers in offensive snaps — but neither is now in a range we would typically see for a starting wide receiver; Kansas City’s wide-receiver-by-committee show continues to run. Justin Watson, Kadarius Toney, Rashee Rice and Justyn Ross had the most snaps behind them — but only Toney’s use seems to be trending up.

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Defensive takeaways

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A Bryan Cook trend?

After the Week 4 game against the New York Jets, we noted that Bryan Cook’s usage had fallen from 100% of the defensive snaps to 83% — and that it appeared veteran safety Mike Edwards was the player who got them. It appears that in Week 5, that trend continued.

Williams vs. Watson

As our Nate Christensen has pointed out, Kansas City always kept a lot of secondary players on the field. So Joshua Willaims and Jaylen Watson combined for 85% of the defensive snaps as the third cornerback — and split them almost exactly down the middle. According to Pro Football Focus, both played almost exclusively on the outside with L’Jarius Sneed whenever Trent McDuffie played in the slot or the box.

Second level

As Nick Bolton missed another game, linebacker Drue Tranquill continued to be on the field for every defensive play. Willie Gay’s use stabilized, while Leo Chenal’s came down.

Defensive line

George Karlaftis and Mike Danna continued to hold down starter-level snaps as the team's edge rushers. While both Malik Herring (34%) and Felix Anudike-Uzomah (33%) were up a little from Week 4, both were in a normal range for rotational EDGE rushers.

On the inside, Chris Jones (76%) was steady — and PFF says that he lined up on the outside for 71% of his snaps against the Vikings. Derrick Nnadi (51%) and Tershawn Wharton (34%) were both slightly up from Week 4, but were within their normal ranges of use. In Week 1 — with Jones still holding out — Wharton’s use was slanted heavily toward passing plays. On Sunday, however, both he and Nnadi tended toward running plays.

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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