Chiefs-Lions snap counts: Noah Gray played a lot — but didn’t replace Travis Kelce

On Thursday night, the Kansas City Chiefs opened the NFL season with an unexpected 21-20 home loss to the Detroit Lions. Let’s see how the Chiefs used their players in Week 1:

Starters (offensive): WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling, WR Skyy Moore, WR Kadarius Toney, LT Donovan Smith, LG Joe Thuney, C Creed Humphrey, RG Trey Smith, RT Jawaan Taylor, TE Noah Gray, QB Patrick Mahomes and RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire

Starters (defensive): DE George Karlaftis, DT Tershawn Wharton, DT Derrick Nnadi, DE Michael Danna, LB Willie Gay Jr., LB Nick Bolton, DB Chamarri Conner, CB Trent McDuffie, CB L’Jarius Sneed, S Justin Reid and S Bryan Cook

Did not play: QB Blaine Gabbert

Inactive: CB Darius Rush, CB Nic Jones, DE BJ Thompson, OL Wanya Morris, T Lucas Niang, TE Travis Kelce and DE Neil Farrell

Snaps

Offensive takeaways

• With tight end Travis Kelce out of the game with an injury — and a lot of younger, more inexperienced players among the team’s wideouts — it was reasonable to wonder if Kansas City would run the ball more often against Detroit. On Thursday night, the team ran the ball on 37% of its offensive plays — essentially unchanged from 2022’s average of 38%. In contrast, the Lions ran on 48% of their offensive plays.
• Another surprise in the running game was Clyde Edwards-Helaire getting the starting nod. There had been no indication that Isiah Pacheco wasn’t fully enough recovered from his offseason surgeries to be the starting back. In the end, however, Pacheco not only took more than twice as many total snaps, but also more than half of the running snaps. Jerick McKinnon got 31% of the load — the vast majority of it on passing plays.
• Tight end Noah Gray was on the field for 87% of the offensive snaps. In comparison, Travis Kelce was on the field for 79% of 2022’s snaps — and exceeded 87% in just one of last season’s games. And like Kelce last season, Gray was used more on passing plays. But it wouldn’t be fair to say that Gray simply stepped into Kelce’s role. Last season, the superstar tight end was targeted on 17.5% of his snaps. On Thursday night, Gray was targeted on just 9.2% of his.
• While Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Skyy Moore and Kadarius Toney were all listed as starting wideouts, only Valdes-Scantling and Moore got the kind of workload we might expect — 63% and 69% respectively — from starting wideouts. Toney was on the field for just 26% of the snaps, while Richie James (37%) and Rashee Rice (32%) got more work. So it does appear the Chiefs were trying to limit Toney’s workload to some extent.

Defensive takeaways

• Cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and L’Jarius Sneed (and safeties Justin Reid and Bryan Cook) were on the field for every defensive snap. So there’s no sign that the team was worried about giving Sneed a full workload. Even though Charmarri Conner was listed as a starter, he was on the field for just 14% of the snaps. Joshua Williams got all of the work as the third cornerback, logging 55% of the reps. Meanwhile, Jaylen Watson was used only on special teams — so at least for Week 1, Williams got the nod over Watson. We’ll see if that lasts.
• Linebacker Nick Bolton missed only three snaps. Willie Gay Jr. had 68% of the snaps while Leo Chenal was on the field for 39% of them. Both of them — especially Gay — were used most often against the run. Drue Tranquill got the rest of the snaps at the second level.
• George Karlaftis (86%) and Mike Danna (84%) got most of the edge-rushing work. Felix Anudike-Uzomah (28% — most of it against the pass) was next, followed by Malik Harring (23%).
• On the inside, elevated practice-squad player Matt Dickerson and veteran Derrick Nnadi got most of the work (59% and 57% — both primarily against the run), with Tersahwn Wharton (38% — mostly against the pass) and rookie Keondre Coburn (13%) getting some time, too. Just as in 2022, defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo had an extra EDGE on the inside for a significant number of plays.

Special teams takeaways

• Based on the opening game of the season, it looks like linebackers Jack Cochrane and Cam Jones are the players who made the team strictly for their special-teams work. Neither one of them took a defensive snap. Linebacker Leo Chenal, however, not only had a significant number of defensive snaps but also led the team in special-teams reps. Joshua Williams also had a lot of work with both units — and special-teams coordinator Dave Toub gave veteran running back Jerick McKinnon a bunch of work, too.

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