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Chiefs snap counts: Nick Bolton plays his fewest defensive snaps of 2021

charles goldman
·2 min read
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A lot of players got snaps this week because of the nature of the Kansas City Chiefs’ blowout win over the Las Vegas Raiders. Andy Reid inserted backups into the game on both offense and defense. Only two players, Andrew Wylie and Trey Smith appeared in 100 percent of the snaps for any individual unit.

What else can we learn from this week’s snap counts? Here’s a look at how the snaps played out in Week 10:

*Snap counts via NFL Game Statistics and Information System

Observations

  • The Chiefs use their wide receiver group like different pitches. This week it was Byron Pringle who came in behind Tyreek Hill for the second-most snaps by a receiver. Last week it was Mecole Hardman.

  • Josh Gordon exceeded his high in snaps with the Chiefs with 33 offensive snaps on the night. He wasn’t targeted once in those 33 snaps. They’re getting him involved, but it is certainly not as a target in the passing game.

  • Mecole Hardman played his lowest snap total of the season, seeing his role on offense diminished to just 24 snaps. He also only got a single snap on special teams this week.

  • For the second consecutive week, Jerick McKinnon received more snaps than Derrick Gore. Kansas City seems to be setting Gore up to attempt to get him back on the practice squad when Clyde Edwards-Helaire returns healthy.

  • Noah Gray the second-most snaps on offense by a tight end on Sunday night with 25. He also happened to score his first career touchdown and lead the team in special teams snaps. He’s slowly but surely carving out a nice role for himself.

  • Juan Thornhill played the most snaps of any Chiefs defender with 52 total snaps, which accounted for 96% of the total defensive snaps by the team.

  • Despite dealing with an illness during the game, Willie Gay Jr. played the most defensive snaps of any Chiefs linebacker on Sunday. Charvarius Ward was also dealing with an illness and was limited to just 50% of the defensive snaps.

  • Nick Bolton saw the fewest snaps of his young career on Sunday night. This wasn’t because of Anthony Hitchens, who also played a season-low of 22 snaps (excluding the game he was injured during). A lot of this was based on game flow, with the Raiders playing from behind all night and forcing the Chiefs into subpackage groupings. Still, this is discouraging to see for a rookie who has performed so well in recent weeks.

  • Mike Hughes saw the most action he’s seen on defense in the past several weeks, likely due to the illness Ward was dealing with and the backups getting some snaps late in the game.

  • Dorian O’Daniel was the lone active non-specialist to play only special teams snaps. Even with the second-string defense coming on in relief, O’Daniel didn’t get any defensive snaps.

List

4 takeaways from Chiefs' Week 10 win over Raiders