Chiefs-Raiders snap counts: Charles Omenihu casts a big shadow in return

How did Kansas City use its players in Friday’s game against Las Vegas?

The Kansas City Chiefs handed the Las Vegas Raiders a narrow 19-17 defeat in Week 13’s “Black Friday” matchup on GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.

Let’s take a look at how the Chiefs used their players.

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Starters (offensive): WR Xavier Worthy, TE Travis Kelce, TE Noah Gray, LT Wanya Morris, LG Joe Thuney, C Creed Humphrey, RG Trey Smith, RT Jawaan Taylor, WR DeAndre Hopkins, QB Patrick Mahomes and RB Kareem Hunt.

Starters (defensive): DT Chris Jones, DT Tershawn Wharton, DE Michael Danna, LB Nick Bolton, LB Leo Chenal, LB Drue Tranquill, CB Trent McDuffie, DB Chamarri Conner, S Justin Reid, S Nazeeh Johnson and S Bryan Cook.

Did not play: QB Carson Wentz.

Inactive: RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire, K Spencer Shrader, OL C.J. Hanson, T D.J. Humphries, OT Ethan Driskell, DT Marlon Tuipulotu and DE Malik Herring.

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The big takeaway

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Defensive end Charles Omenihu returned for Friday’s game after missing the season’s first 12 contests. His impact was significant.

In 2023, he appeared in 50-70% of the team’s snaps — and tended to be an every-down player.

Unsurprisingly, he was used a bit less in his first game back in the lineup — and tended toward passing plays.

We would expect that in his return, Omenihu would probably push another player off the field. That’s what happened. Defensive end Malik Herring was inactive for Friday’s game.

To be sure, Herring was not generally playing a big role in the defense — and wasn’t playing on special teams, either. That’s probably why he was made inactive for the game, leaving defensive end Joshua Uche active against the Raiders.

But as we see here, Uche didn’t play any defensive snaps on Friday. His use was restricted to special teams.

According to Pro Football Focus, Omenihu primarily played on the outside. Just 20% of his snaps were on the inside — and on a couple of them, he was lined up off the line of scrimmage. It looks like this led to defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton having his lowest use of the season.

So Omenihu’s return ended up pushing two defensive ends out of their normal (albeit secondary) roles — and even appears to have impacted the use of a defensive tackle. Meanwhile, the defense collected three sacks for the first time since Week 2, as Omenihu turned in the highest win rate on the defensive line.

It looks like Omenihu’s return will end up making a significant improvement

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Offensive takeaways

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• Nobody was blown away by Kansas City’s offense on Friday — but it did something that has been a signature of its 2024 victories: it was on the field for more plays (67) than the defense (63). That’s been true in nine of the team’s 11 wins this season — and in the loss to the Buffalo Bills, the offense played 52 plays to the defense’s 71.
• The Chiefs passed on an astounding 76% of their plays. That’s the highest percentage of the season. Dating back through 2020, there have been only three Kansas City games with a higher percentage of passing plays. In one of them, the Chiefs were blown out. Another was an overtime victory, while the third was a two-point win. We expect head coach Andy Reid to call passing plays about twice as often as running plays — but when the percentage goes much higher than that, it usually spells trouble.
• Left guard Joe Thuney, center Creed Humphrey, right guard Trey Smith and right tackle Jawaan Taylor all started every snap. Left tackle Wanya Morris (90%) was pulled from the lineup midway through the fourth quarter. Thuney slid out to take his place, while Mike Caliendo (10%) played the rest of the game at left guard. Kingsley Suamataia (3%) had a couple of snaps as a sixth offensive lineman.
• At tight end, we saw pretty much what we would expect from Travis Kelce (90%) and Noah Gray (63%). Practice squad player Anthony Firkser was in for 10% of the snaps.
• In his first game back, Isiah Pacheco (33%) was used less than starter Kareem Hunt (40%), while Samaje Perine (27%) was in his normal range and Carson Steele (4%) was hardly used at all — but saw his special teams use jump from 7% to 45%.
• At wide receiver, JuJu Smith-Schuster (57%), Xavier Worthy (57%) and DeAndre Hopkins (57%) were used equally often. Smith-Schuster and Worthy were right where they have been, while Hopkins’ use increased and Justin Watson’s use (48%) decreased. Mecole Hardman (12%) continued to bring up the rear.

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Defensive takeaways

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• As usual, cornerback Trent McDuffie was in for every defensive snap. Nazeeh Johnson (19%) started across from him, but was replaced by Joshua Williams (78%) midway through the second quarter. Williams turned in his best PFF defensive grade of the season (79), which was also higher than any of Johnson’s 2024 grades.
• Cornerback Keith Taylor (5%) got a handful of defensive snaps.
• At safety, Justin Reid (100%) was in for every snap, while Bryan Cook’s use was down a little. Rookie Jaden Hicks (33%) saw his highest use of the season while taking up the slack. Chamarri Conner (71%) continues to see a high level of playing time — most of it as a slot defender.
• As a team, the Chiefs had their second-best PFF coverage grade (69.1) of the season.
• At linebacker, Nick Bolton (95%), Drue Tranquill (76%) and Leo Chenal (33%) were in their normal ranges.
• Defensive ends George Karlaftis (87%), Michael Danna (65%) and Felix Anudike-Uzomah (14%) were also in their normal ranges, as were defensive tackles Chris Jones (87%), Mike Pennel (32%) and Derrick Nnadi (19%).

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Data

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Offense

Defense

Special Teams

All Snaps

Editor’s Note: Arrowhead Pride obtains snap count data from the NFL’s game stats and information system, which allows us to break out snap counts by run or pass on offensive and defensive plays. Because GSIS data ignores plays that were nullified by penalties, total offensive and defensive snap counts will vary from other sources, which get their data from NFL Gamebooks