Chiefs-Chargers snap counts: Bolton and Gay take over the middle – Arrowhead Pride

The Kansas City Chiefs came back to win 27-24 over the Los Angeles Chargers on Thursday Night Football.

Let’s see how the Chiefs used their players in this AFC West showdown.

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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 Marquez Valdes-Scantling, QB Patrick Mahomes, RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire and WR Mecole Hardman.

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

Did not play: QB Chad Henne.

Inactive: RB Ronald Jones, K Harrison Butker, QB Shane Buechele, LB Jack Cochrane, DE Joshua Kaindoh, T Darian Kinnard and DE Malik Herring.

Offensive takeaways

• As usual, starting offensive linemen Orlando Brown Jr., Joe Thuney, Creed Humphrey, Trey Smith and Andrew Wylie were in for all of the offensive snaps. Nick Allegretti came on as a sixth lineman for a couple of plays.
• The Chiefs continued to operate their running backs as a group; none of them had a majority of the snaps. Jerick McKinnon was favored more on passing plays than Clyde Edwards-Helaire. Without a big fourth-quarter lead, Isiah Pacheco’s use fell below 10%.
• That figured into the tight end usage, too. Tight end Travis Kelce was back to his usual use: around 90% of the snaps, while Jody Fortson’s reps were also around 10%.
• The team clearly sees wide receivers Marquez Valdes-Scantling and JuJu Smith-Schuster as the core players in the group, followed by Mecole Hardman and Justin Watson. Rookie Skyy Moore had only two offensive snaps.
• In Week 1, Kansas City emphasized running plays a bit more than we typically see. But in this game, they were back to a more familiar ratio: 67% pass and 33% run.

Defensive takeaways

• With a competitive game until the end, we saw what we normally see: L’Jarius Sneed, Rashad Fenton, Justin Reid and Juan Thornhill were in for virtually every defensive snap. Jaylen Watson was the fifth cornerback for 68% of the snaps. Just as in Week 1, there were only a handful of plays with a third safety; Bryan Cook and Deon Bush combined for about 10% of the snaps.
• Nick Bolton and Willie Gay Jr. were each in for more than 90% of the defensive snaps, while Leo Chenal had 30% — mostly against the run — and Darius Harris had 4%. Elijah Lee played exclusively on special teams. So it appears that Kansas City is leaning into a 4-2-5 alignment as its true base defense.
• Rookie defensive end George Karlaftis and defensive tackle Chris Jones again led the defense in snaps. The numbers suggest that in general, Carlos Dunlap is subbing in for Karlaftis and Khalen Saunders is coming in for Jones on running downs. But as always, defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s constant shifts on the line keep us — and opposing offenses — guessing.
• Along those lines, Pro Football Focus reports that against the Chargers, Jones continued to line up on the edge for some snaps. On Thursday, it was around one in five plays. This is well below the outside usage we saw before 2021’s EDGE experiment; these days, Spagnuolo is mostly keeping Jones at home. But defensive Tershawn Wharton is starting to see significant use on the outside. PFF says that in about one in three of Thursday’s snaps, Wharton was on the edge.

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

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