Chiefs-Jets snap counts: Travis Kelce in the groove; Isiah Pacheco now the bell cow

How did Kansas City use its players in Sunday’s game against the Jets?

In Week 4’s edition of “Sunday Night Football,” the Kansas City Chiefs jumped out to a big early lead and ultimately held off a strong comeback in a 23-20 defeat of the New York Jets that pushed their season record to 3-1.

Let’s see how Kansas City used its players during Sunday’s game — and now with four games behind us, we’ll examine some of the trends we’re seeing.

Starters (offensive): WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling, WR Justin Watson, LT Donovan Smith, LG Joe Thuney, C Creed Humphrey, RG Trey Smith, RT Jawaan Taylor, TE Travis Kelce, WR Skyy Moore, QB Patrick Mahomes and RB Isiah Pacheco.

Starters (defensive): DE George Karlaftis, DT Derrick Nnadi, DT Chris Jones, DE Michael Danna, LB Willie Gay Jr., LB Drue Tranquill, LB Leo Chenal, CB Trent McDuffie, CB L’Jarius Sneed, S Justin Reid and S Bryan Cook.

Did not play: QB Blaine Gabbert.

Inactive: LB Nick Bolton, CB Jaylen Watson, DE BJ Thompson, OL Mike Caliendo, DE Neil Farrell and DT Keondre Coburn.

Offensive takeaways

Run vs. pass

This game against the Jets was a rarity during head coach Andy Reid’s tenure with Kansas City: the Chiefs actually ran more (53%) than they passed (47%). To be sure, part of that had to do with quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ scrambles — he had seven in the game — but he also had seven in Week 2 against the Jacksonville Jaguars (when Kansas City ran on just 34% of its snaps) and six in Week 2, when the Chiefs ran 37% of the time.

Travis Kelce

For the first time this season, the Chiefs’ superstar tight end Travis Kelce was used in his typical way: he was on the field for somewhere around 80% of the offensive snaps.

On Sunday, Kelce was targeted nine times, catching six of his passes and leading the team with 60 receiving yards. That’s right in the neighborhood of his 2022 averages for targets and catches (8.9 and 6.4) but well below 2022’s 78.4 receiving yards per game. To make it to his eighth-straight 1,000-yard season, he’ll need to average at least 65 yards per game the rest of the way.

Isiah Pacheco

Like Kelce, Kansas City’s starting running back was finally back to the use we would normally expect for a starter in Reid’s offense: around 60% of the snaps.

This was actually the first time that Pacheco has exceeded 60% of the offensive snaps. in 2022, he never exceeded 56% — and in 2022, he also has special-teams duties. As you can see here, that is not the case this season. As much as it is possible for a Chiefs offense under head coach Andy Reid offense to have a “bell cow” running back, Pacheco now appears to be it.

Wide receivers

As the season began, we expected that Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Skyy Moore were the players who were likely to get the most playing time — and for the first couple of games, it looked like that’s more or less how Kansas City used them.

But through four games, only Moore is being used in anything like a consistent manner — and for all of his use, he has collected just seven catches (on 15 targets) for 112 yards (and a touchdown) through four games. Valdes-Scantling has six catches (on nine targets) for 104 yards — neither of which are impressive numbers for the work they’ve had.

But the usage for the rest of the team’s wideouts don’t give us many clues about where the position group is headed.

Sooner or later, we expect that the team’s top wideouts will emerge — and get some reasonably consistent use. But that hasn’t happened yet.

Defensive takeaways

Run vs. pass

Despite Willie Gay’s expectations — the Jets passed the ball on 71% of their plays — almost exactly the same proportion as the Jaguars did two weeks ago.

Offense vs. defense

In Week 2, the Chiefs and Jaguars each ran 64 plays. In Week 3, the Kansas City ran 75 and Chicago had the ball for 51. On Sunday, the Chiefs were on offense for 66 plays and played defense for 58. Now consider that Kansas City’s final drive covered 45 yards in 15 plays — and ran the clock from 7:24 to 0:00. That gives you an idea how much the final Chiefs’ drive differed from the rest of the game.

The big four

Every season, defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo counts on two cornerbacks and two safeties to be on the field for virtually every snap. Before the season started, we considered it possible that veteran safety Mike Edwards might end up as one of those guys. But through four games, the pattern has been consistent: Trent McDuffie, L’Jarius Sneed, Justin Reid and Bryan Cook are the defenders we can expect to see on every play.

There is, however, one caveat to this. On Sunday, Cook’s use dropped to 83% of the snaps — while Edwards (normally a third safety) got a bit more work. Did the game against the Bears (in which he grabbed an interception) open up an opportunity for him? Or did cook have a slight injury that hasn’t yet been reported? We’ll see if the trend continues.

The second level

Among the linebackers, the most interesting story so far is the emergence of veteran Drue Tranquill. Over the last two games, he’s been a snap-for-snap replacement for MIKE linebacker Nick Bolton, who is the other defensive player we can expect to see on the field for every play. But even before then, Tranquill was getting playing time — and it was apparently (mostly) at the expense of fourth-year linebacker Willie Gay Jr.

Like all of the defense’s starters, both Tranquill and Gay had their use dip when reserves came into the Week 3 game against the Chicago Bears. But it sure looks like the Chiefs are trying to find out if Tranquill could be a guy they could sign for 2024 — perhaps instead of Gay.

Edge rushers

While this could change when Charles Omenihu finally gets on the field, George Karlaftis and Mike Danna have consistently been getting most of the work on the outside of the defensive line.

Malik Herring and Felix Anudike-Uzomah are essentially splitting up the rest of the snaps on the outside — although as always, defensive tackle Chris Jones gets some work there, too.

Defensive interior

In fact, according to PFF, only about 35% of Jones’ snaps this season have been from the defensive interior — and in Week 4, he finally got close to the overall usage we would expect for him. The rest of the interior reps are being filled by Derrick Nnadi (whose lower snaps in Week 3 identify him as the main guy alongside Jones), with the rest being distributed between returning veteran Tershawn Wharton and the newly-activated Matt Dickerson.

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