KC Chiefs Snap Counts vs. Jacksonville Jaguars: Far From a Finished Product

KC's snap shares from their Week 2 win over the Jaguars provided plenty of context to the team's early-season developments.

Two games into the 2023 NFL season, the Kansas City Chiefs have been the exact opposite of what many expected them to be thus far.

In years past, Andy Reid's high-powered offense has hit the ground running and been one of the very best in the NFL for extended stretches. On the flip side, Steve Spagnuolo's defense has built a reputation for being a slow-starting unit that improves over time and is formidable by the end of the season. Through Week 2, however, the defense has been spectacular and the offense is lagging behind.

There are multiple reasons for both cases being true, and plenty of them tie back to execution. A combination of dropped passes, poor route-running choices, penalties and more have limited Kansas City's offense. Defensively, players are making proper adjustments and running the scheme at a very high level with consistency. With that said, the Chiefs are far from a finished product at this point and will work to learn which lineups and packages can be optimized as the season continues to unfold. Week 2 against the Jacksonville Jaguars was another step in that process. 

Now that snap counts have been released, what jumped off the page? Let's take a look at three notable takeaways from another week of Chiefs football.

#Chiefs snap counts from yesterday’s win over the Jaguars: pic.twitter.com/o3yXrEwBCI

— Jordan Foote (@footenoted) September 18, 2023

The Chiefs took a wise approach with Travis Kelce and Chris Jones

On Monday morning, the Chiefs didn't seem to have much of a clue whether tight end Travis Kelce was going to return from his bone bruise in time for the contest at the end of the week. On top of that, news of Chris Jones's new one-year deal with the team hadn't been made public and he was still on the reserve/did not report list. Over the next few days, though, both players returned to practice and made it clear that they'd be set to debut against the Jaguars. They played key roles in the win, even in less-than-normal capacities.

Kelce was on the field for 43 offensive snaps on Sunday, which was good for 63% of those available for Kansas City. This was a sharp decline from his 80% average a year ago, although it's also smart on the team's behalf to manage his workload a bit as he eases his way back in. The same can be said for Jones, who logged 34 snaps — 51% of available reps — and was a monster on defense. Both of these percentages should increase in Weeks 3, 4 and potentially 5, which is exactly the right plan for two of the team's three most important players. 

Some shifting of the wide receiver workload

In Week 1 against the Detroit Lions, Kansas City opened the season with Skyy Moore (45 snaps), Marquez Valdes-Scantling (41) and Richie James (23) being their leaders on offense. Behind them, the trio of rookie Rashee Rice (20), veteran Justin Watson (19) and the Kadarius Toney (16) fell in line in a bunch and Justyn Ross (6) hardly played. Personnel on the opposing side of the field absolutely plays a role in which packages the Chiefs operate out of on offense, but a few developments from Week 2 stood out.

Valdes-Scantling paced the group this time around, seeing the field 55 times (82% of available snaps). Moore also played a prominent role on offense (39 snaps), but Watson (31) returned to a share similar to what he had a year ago. The biggest difference this week was in James's involvement. The fifth-year veteran played only three snaps on offense in this game, perhaps signaling that he's falling out of favor. Youngsters such as Rice and Ross remain supporting pieces with limited snap counts, but it isn't time to worry about them yet. James is getting close to that level, though.  

Continued experimenting at backup corner?

All of last year, there was an interesting dynamic between rookie cornerbacks Joshua Williams and Jaylen Watson. Both Day 3 draft picks were thrown into the fire in their first years on the job, and both displayed some strengths and weaknesses over the course of the year. Spagnuolo opted to open the season with Williams as his third cornerback, sending Watson to the bench where he didn't log a single defensive snap in Week 1. While Williams was still the tertiary corner of choice in Jacksonville, Watson returned to the rotation as well.

For Williams, his decrease in snaps wasn't too severe as he dropped from 39 to 31. Watson's leap from nothing to 21 reps, however, came partially at the expense of rookie Chamarri Conner (two snaps in Week 2). As the Chiefs experiment with different groupings on defense — lighter versus heavier personnel, one player instead of another depending on the situation, etc. — it wouldn't be smart to count Watson out. He has a way of lingering around, even if he's fourth on the depth chart behind L'Jarius Sneed, Trent McDuffie and Williams. He'll likely make some sort of impact if he sees the field moving forward. 

Read More: Chiefs Still Have Plenty of Room to Improve After Week 2 Win