Three Chiefs Week 5 Snap Count Trends That Stand Out

Many things jumped off the snap count page from the Chiefs' big Week 5 win over Las Vegas.

The Kansas City Chiefs' Week 5 win over the Las Vegas Raiders wasn't pretty, but Andy Reid's team got the job done nonetheless. 

In a thrilling comeback victory, Kansas City's offense was propelled by the legendary duo of Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. Defensively, Steve Spagnuolo's unit got off to a bit of a rough start but improved down the stretch and got enough stops to allow the offense's scoring output to catch them back up in the game. In the end, the Chiefs won by a single point and are 4-1 on the year heading into a pivotal Week 6 matchup at home against the visiting Buffalo Bills. 

Now that snap counts have been released (courtesy of the NFL Game Statistics & Information System), what jumped off the page? Let's take a look at three notable takeaways from another week of Chiefs football.

#Chiefs snap counts by offense, defense and special teams vs Raiders. pic.twitter.com/JYaupK9RFT

— Nick Jacobs (@Jacobs71) October 11, 2022

1. Jet was cleared for takeoff

It seems that the Chiefs' running back splits are a hot topic of discussion every week, and that's because the workload and snap counts tend to change so frequently. After it looked like a week ago that he may have been on the verge of being surpassed by rookie Isiah Pacheco, veteran Jerick McKinnon led all Kansas City running backs with 38 offensive snaps against Las Vegas. That total was seven more than Clyde Edwards-Helaire and a whopping 36 more than Pacheco was able to log on Monday night.

On eight carries, McKinnon made the most of them by tallying 53 yards and also hauling in two passes for 19 yards in the process. Edwards-Helaire totaled just 15 rushing yards on nine carries and Pacheco's lone run of the night was for a net gain of zero, which made 30-year-old McKinnon easily the club's most productive running back on the night. It remains to be seen what McKinnon's share will look like moving forward but considering his playoff performances last season and his flashes in short spurts this year, he seems like a lock to remain at least relevant in Reid's offense. 

2. Skyy Moore's new involvement rate may be legit

After seeing the field 22 times offensively and being targeted four times against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 4, rookie wide receiver Skyy Moore picked up where he left off on Monday Night Football. Against the Raiders, Moore logged a career-high 25 offensive snaps (35%) and caught two passes for the second consecutive week. 

Moore's lack of involvement in the Chiefs' offense to begin the season was a major question mark, but it appears that he's well on his way to being worked into the fold with more regularity. That's a good development for both him and Kansas City, although it makes plenty of sense to believe that Mecole Hardman will see the field more often moving forward than he did on Monday (40%). 

3. Injuries caused a defensive line shuffle 

With Mike Danna already out for Monday's matchup and Joshua Kaindoh being a healthy scratch yet again, the Chiefs' defensive line question marks were brought under the bright lights once more injuries struck. Not only did the loss of defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton cause there to be a greater strain placed on the interior of Spagnuolo's defensive line, but Frank Clark becoming ill during the game left the defensive end position extremely thin as well.

As a result, multiple players certainly earned their keep against the Raiders. Chris Jones played 91% of available defensive snaps, rookie George Karlaftis was on the field for 86% of them and even veteran Carlos Dunlap (58%) and young developmental piece Malik Herring (31%) saw the field quite a bit. Health will be the main focus for this group heading into the Bills game but when faced with a great deal of adversity, the Chiefs' defensive front responded about as well as it could given the circumstances of the game.

Read More: Chiefs Still Have NFL's Best Duo