Snap Count Notes: Buffalo Bills vs Kansas City

The Buffalo Bills jaunted down to Kansas City and had a statement game. Which is what, at least the third one this year? As long as the statement is “The Bills are really good” I’m all for it. Here’s our weekly look at playing time! Hopefully you’re awake enough to enjoy it.

Offense (57 snaps)

Hey everyone, want even MORE good news? The 100 percent club was intact Sunday night, meaning everyone was healthy enough to close the game. The line of Spencer Brown, Dion Dawkins, Mitch Morse, Daryl Williams, and Jon Feliciano never came out. Neither did Allen, which is significant. Mitch Trubisky has taken the kneel down duties as of late, but in a game this significant they kept Allen in. Speaking of which, you always love seeing Micah Hyde getting snaps on offense.

The Bills have gone all-on on Dawson Knox as there’s now more games where he’s led the skill positions in playing time than not. Knox nearly hit the club mark, and his nigh omnipresence was rewarded with a big night. Tommy Sweeney also saw a handful of reps, and Reggie Gilliam saw a large chunk. The Bills ran the ball two more times than they took to the air, which is reflected with the playing time for this trio.

Despite that, the Bills didn’t have Zack Moss and Devin Singletary double up on the field. Their snaps come to exactly 100 percent and Moss got the lead in time in pretty convincing fashion. Remember, he was inactive Week 1.

The extra TE time seems to be coming somewhat at the expense of the wide receivers, with Cole Beasley the most impacted this week (Beasley averaged mid-60s the last two seasons in Buffalo and has been hovering near there so far this year too). Sanders and Diggs remained fairly stable from last week. Isaiah McKenzie and Jake Kumerow continue to be sprinkled in.

Defense (86 snaps)

Before we hit the 100 percent club, as I often do I’d like to point out the massive gulf in overall snap counts. Kansas City ran an “overtime amount” of plays and still came up short. On to play time!

Tre’Davious White, Jordan Poyer, Micah Hyde, and Tremaine Edmunds were the only 100 percent club members this week. Taron Johnson left for one play due to cramps. Siran Neal also left briefly for the same reason, being replaced by Dane Jackson.

Speaking of defensive backs, all signs point to another game entrenched in AT LEAST nickel. Matt Milano’s replacement, A.J. Klein, only hit the field about two-thirds of the game. Klein was often swapped for Neal, meaning the Bills ran dime about one-third of the game. WOODEN DIME DEFENSE!

For defensive ends, Jerry Hughes led the way fairly easily. With the Bills still focusing on rotation to a high degree this suggests they liked Hughes’s skill set for this particular matchup. From this author’s personal thoughts, the Bills kept Mahomes from scrambling and doing playground football. This is a role Hughes typically excels at. Greg Rousseau (GROOOT!) and Efe Obada were pretty evenly split trailing Hughes. They were followed closely by A.J. Epenesa, Boogie Basham, and Mario Addison.

That’s a LOT of defensive end snaps. To be precise, 210 of them, or 244 percent of play time. For a two-person rotation. That means Buffalo played with three ends on the field for nearly half the game. Add that up with the heavy dime usage and the Bills looked to play FAAAAAAST!

That checks out with sparse defensive tackle counts. Ed Oliver led the way with Star Lotulelei and Justin Zimmer coming in second and third respectively.

Special teams (29 snaps)

For special teams this is only the group that had 50 percent or higher play time. Reggie Gilliam fell off after hitting 100 percent play time last week (which was the anomaly, not this week). There are no surprises this week with this group—the clear core.