Three Thoughts on Chiefs' Week 17 Snap Counts

Kansas City's snap shares from their Sunday win over Denver were intriguing on multiple levels.

For the second time this season, the Kansas City Chiefs got tested by the Denver Broncos and won by just one score despite being heavily favored coming into the game.

In Kansas City's Week 17 victory over their visiting AFC West rivals, the offense left points on the board in the first half via a red zone interception from Patrick Mahomes and the unit also struggled out of the gate to begin half No. 2. Defensively, Steve Spagnuolo's group put up a strong performance through three frames before bending a bit in the fourth but ultimately putting the pieces back together in the end. The win was a team effort, as multiple players on both sides of the ball stepped up. 

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. 

1. Shaking up the wide receiver distribution

In recent weeks, many folks in Chiefs circles have found Justin Watson's heavy workload at the wide receiver position puzzling. Considering that there are several others players on the depth chart with varying specialties, it was interesting that Watson remained logging snap percentages of more than 60% in every game dating back to Week 10. Against the Broncos, though, that number fell to 37% on just 22 snaps — his lowest amount since Week 7.

In place of Watson, Kansas City opted to give Marquez Valdes-Scantling 50 offensive snaps (his most since Week 10). Elsewhere, Kadarius Toney and Skyy Moore combined to account for 34 snaps and JuJu Smith-Schuster saw his total drop to 39. The Chiefs' liking of multiple tight end sets will always lead to the wide receiver snaps being a bit wonky, especially with so much depth at the position, but this week's share was particularly odd. The (possible) looming addition of Mecole Hardman could complicate the situation even more.

2. Is Jaylen Watson's stock trending back up?

The Chiefs' rookie cornerbacks have each had their shining moments this season, with first-round pick Trent McDuffie being the star of the group. Behind him, the dynamic of the duo of Joshua Williams and Jaylen Watson has evolved multiple times over the course of the year. Early in the season, Watson was dominating the share of snaps and seemed to have a clear advantage over Williams. Then, from Week 9 through Week 13, Williams was Spagnuolo's preferred Day 3 cornerback to put on the field. Over the last month or so, however, that split has experienced another shift. 

After playing 50% of available defensive snaps in Week 14's win over the Broncos, Williams's percentages have been 25, 26 and 20 in the following three games. Watson played 36% of the snaps in Denver on Dec. 11, and he's been on the field 32%, 46% and 69% of the time in three games since then. The timing of this is key, as Spagnuolo is tweaking his rotations and trying to figure out what his best personnel groupings are for the postseason. Watson is coming on strong to close out the year, which could parlay itself into a sizable playoff workload compared to Williams if this trend holds. 

3. A busier day for Leo Chenal

Picked in the third round of last April's NFL Draft, it was pretty apparent early on that Leo Chenal was going to face an uphill battle to gain significant snaps as a rookie. Some of that was simply out of his control, as the Chiefs' other investments at the linebacker position left him on the outside looking in. While Chenal did manage to log some decent snap percentages to begin the year, his highest figure in Weeks 10-14 was 20%. That stretch included games with zero and six snaps in back-to-back weeks, raising questions about just how big of a non-special teams impact the former Wisconsin Badger would have. 

Since then, though, Chenal's snap totals have been 27, 21 and 22. On Sunday against Denver, he matched his previous career-high with five tackles and was a factor in run support when on the field. Chenal got almost all of his work in before the fourth quarter (just one snap in the final frame), which could indicate that Kansas City still wants to give him a runway to make mistakes and play lower-leverage snaps before ramping up what's asked of him. The finished product likely won't arrive until next season, but the fact that Chenal is seeing the field a fair amount right now bodes well for him as the 2022-23 campaign reaches its final few weeks.