Even in a blowout, the Los Angeles Rams didn’t exactly rotate their players very much on Sunday afternoon. As Sean McVay often does, he leaned heavily on his starters despite the lopsided score.
Looking at the snap counts, we can see that it was mostly the same players who led the team, particularly on offense. Defensively, There wasn’t exactly a shakeup in playing time, with Quentin Lake, Kamren Curl, Troy Reeder and Tre’Davious White leading the team in snaps played again.
Here’s a look at the snap counts for both the offense and defense from their Week 2 loss to the Cardinals, as well as breakdowns on each side of the ball.
Offense
The Rams got some continuity along the offensive line, even if the result wasn’t great. All five starters played every snap in the loss to Arizona, including rookie center Beaux Limmer.
Demarcus Robinson led the receiving corps with a 92% snap share, though Cooper Kupp would’ve been up there with him if not for his ankle injury. Tyler Johnson played 87%, Jordan Whittington played 50% – including every snap in the second half – and Tutu Atwell was limited to only 10 snaps.
Colby Parkinson barely came off the field once again and the Rams didn’t use anything besides 11 personnel, so Hunter Long’s 10 snaps were all in place of Parkinson.
Kyren Williams played 41 of a possible 52 snaps, but he really only came off the field for three meaningful plays when Ronnie Rivers replaced him. All eight of Blake Corum’s snaps came on the final drive when he carried it eight times. It’s clear the Rams have no plans to limit Williams’ workload right now.
Defense
One notable difference on defense this week was the fact that Michael Hoecht played the same number of snaps as Byron Young and only six fewer than Jared Verse. The Rams used him much more than they did in Week 1 when he played only 30 snaps compared to 43 for Verse and 49 for Young. And it’s not as if his snaps only came in garbage time, either. Nick Hampton was the only other edge rusher to play, getting one snap.
Josh Wallace got a bigger opportunity in this game, too. He played 18 snaps after playing just two in Week 1, filling in for Cobie Durant in the fourth quarter. Charles Woods also played six snaps, all of which came late in the fourth quarter.
Kamren Kinchens played sparingly again, only getting nine snaps behind Curl and John Johnson. He made a bad mistake on Marvin Harrison Jr.’s 33-yard reception down the left sideline, finding himself in no-man’s land. Jaylen McCollough played one snap in the third quarter.
Up front, Kobie Turner led the defensive line with 83% of the snaps played, followed by Braden Fiske and Bobby Brown III, the other two starters. Desjuan Johnson was active for this one and played 21 snaps. Neville Gallimore played 16 snaps as the backup nose tackle.