Buffalo Bills snap counts vs. Green Bay Packers

The Buffalo Bills traveled to Green Bay to take on the Packers. Then they flew home. There’s really no need to discuss what happened in between those two flights. We’ll see you next week. OK, fine. The Bills failed to get on the board and the Packers had the game pretty much sealed at halftime. Our weekly look at playing time gives a look at the narrative behind the score.

Offense (58 snaps)

Russell Bodine seems to have officially replaced Ryan Groy at Center. Jordan Mills was replaced by Conor McDermott for two snaps, otherwise the offensive line remains stable. With Marshall Newhouse gone, the heavy package on offense all but disappeared.

Zay Jones has seen the most snaps on offense at receiver so far this year, but 91% of snaps represents a 28% increase from the week before. Last week, tight end snaps were more evenly divided. Charles Clay was heavily featured against Green Bay.

You wouldn’t know it by his stat line, but LeSean McCoy was in on over half the offensive plays. Adding up the plays by running backs, it comes to 58 snaps. In other words, the Bills are not using two back sets. Similarly, Patrick DiMarco’s light usage continues.

Defense (76 snaps)

Injuries impacted the 100% club again this week. An early groin injury sent Micah Hyde to the sideline and Rafael Bush took over. Taron Johnson left the field when it appeared he re-injured his shoulder.

On the line, Jerry Hughes and Trent Murphy both fell in at 66%, right where McDermott likes to get his starters. Heavy rotation from the backups saw Nate Orchard get in the mix with Shaq Lawson and Eddie Yarbrough. Kyle Williams was right behind Murphy and Hughes. Star Lotulelei saw a small increase compared to last week, but still fell short of the rest of the starters on the line. The Bills continued to use a lighter lineup with Lawson and Lorenzo Alexander both seeing time at defensive tackle.

For the linebackers, the roughly 70/30 split has remained stable between Matt Milano and Ramon Humber all the way back to last year. If social media is any indication, the decision to keep giving Humber playing time is controversial. There’s no reason to think it will change as long as both players are healthy.

Special teams (23 snaps)

Players who played one-third or more of plays on special teams make the chart this week. There wasn’t much in the way of significant fluctuation. Only 30 players took the field for special teams, which is the lowest total so far this year. The most depressing stat of the week is the following: Steven Hauschka only played one snap this week.