Chiefs-Bills snap counts: Niemann, Reed see less use as Gay and Clark return

Let’s see how Kansas City used its players in Sunday night’s loss.

The Kansas City Chiefs suffered a 38-20 defeat at the hands of the Buffalo Bills on Sunday night. Let’s see how Kansas City used their players in the loss.

Starters (offensive): WR Mecole Hardman, WR Tyreek Hill, TE Travis Kelce, LT Orlando Brown Jr., LG Joe Thuney, C Creed Humphrey, RG Trey Smith, RT Lucas Niang, WR Demarcus Robinson, QB Patrick Mahomes and RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire.

Starters (defensive): DE Michael Danna, LDT Jarran Reed, RDT Derrick Nnadi, RDE Frank Clark, LB Nick Bolton, LB Ben Niemann, LB Anthony Hitchens, RCB L’Jarius Sneed, LCB Rashad Fenton, S Daniel Sorensen and S Tyrann Mathieu.

Did not play: QB Chad Henne and T Mike Remmers.

Inactive: CB Charvarius Ward, OL Austin Blythe, G Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, WR Daurice Fountain, TE Noah Gray and DT Chris Jones.

Offensive takeaways

Left tackle Orlando Brown Jr., left guard Joe Thuney, center Creed Humphrey, right guard Trey Smith and right tackle Lucas Niang were on the field for every offensive snap. Offensive lineman Austin Blythe and guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif were inactive — and tackle Mike Remmers didn’t play.

At tight end, rookie Noah Gray was inactive for the game. But no tight ends had an increase in offensive use. Travis Kelce, Blake Bell and Jody Fortson had essentially the same offensive snap percentages that they had against the Philadelphia Eagles; the team simply used tight ends less than they had all season, averaging just 1.25 for every play. Fortson, however, saw a sharp rise in special-teams use.

After being injured in the third quarter, running back Clyde Edward-Helaire had a corresponding drop in use. But it didn’t result in a corresponding rise in the use of Darrel Williams; instead, most of the snaps appeared to go to Jerick McKinnon.

Kansas City made up for reducing the use of tight ends by increase the use of wide receivers — but not all of them. Tyreek Hill’s use remained steady, as did Byron Pringle’s. But we saw fairly slight increases in the use of Mecole Hardman and Demarcus Robinson — and Josh Gordon was in the mix for 10% of the offensive snaps — mostly running plays. Daurice Fountain was again inactive.

Defensive takeaways

In the defensive backfield, Tyrann Mathieu, Daniel Sorensen and L’Jarius Sneed were in for every play, while Rashad Fenton — back from his concussion — was in for 96% of the plays. Safety Juan Thornill ‘s use was steady at 41%.

The team backed off a little from their emphasis on cornerbacks and defensive ends instead of linebackers — as they had done in the Eagles game — going back to a more typical proportion among the three levels of the defense.

This was reflected in a sharp decrease in use for cornerbacks Mike Hughes and Deandre Baker — and increases for all linebackers except Ben Niemann. In his first action of the season, Willie Gay Jr. was on the field for 46% of the snaps — more often against the run.

Up front, defensive end Frank Clark was back to his typical usage — in this case, above 80% of the snaps. Even without Chris Jones in the lineup, the usage of defensive ends Alex Okafor and Michael Danna was down a bit. Practice squad elevation Demone Harris made up for some of that with 19% of the snaps.

On the inside, Derrick Nnadi had his greatest percentage of use this season. Jarran Reed continued a downward slide, while Tershawn Wharton continued to climb. Khalen Saunders stayed steady with 36% of the snaps.

Data

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