The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Denver Broncos 34-28 on Sunday afternoon.
Patrick Mahomes gifted the Broncos three extra possessions, yet the snap totals were surprisingly even for the offense (68) and defense (72). L’Jarius Sneed’s late-game interception and the ensuing time-bleeding drive probably helped even the score on those snaps.
What else can we learn from the weekly snap numbers? Here’s a look at how the snaps came down in Week 14:
*Snap counts via NFL Game Statistics and Information System
Observations
- JuJu Smith-Schuster was back up to leading the WR group in snaps this week with 55. That should be the case moving forward so long as he’s healthy.
- Outside of Ihmir Smith-Marsette (3), Skyy Moore had the least snaps of the receivers (27) and he was targeted just twice all night. He caught one pass for seven yards.
- Jerick McKinnon saw 10 more snaps to Isiah Pacheco in Week 14, but they were both phenomenal with their opportunities.
- Ronald Jones was active, but he might as well have been a healthy scratch in Week 14. He didn’t play a single snap on offense or special teams.
- Nick Bolton, L’Jarius Sneed and Juan Thornhill played 100% of the defensive snaps this week.
- Willie Gay Jr. played the second-most snaps among linebackers, which comes a week after he saw his snaps dip in a platoon situation with Darius Harris. Harris played the fewest defensive snaps of anyone on the day in Week 14 (8).
- In his Chiefs debut, veteran DT Brandon Williams played 15 snaps. He notched one tackle, a half-sack, and two quarterback hits. He was also in the area for cleanup duty on another sack. Not a bad start for Williams.
- CBs Joshua Williams and Jaylen Watson are back to taking platoon snaps in the secondary. In recent weeks, the team had trended toward using Williams more frequently. Now it seems they’re working Watson back into the mix. Williams had 35 defensive snaps and Watson had 26.
- Seven non-specialists only played special teams snaps this week. Leo Chenal and Chris Lammons led all players with 26 snaps on special teams on Sunday.
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