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San Diego Chargers Snap Counts: Week 2 vs Seattle Seahawks

A weekly feature looking at the distribution of playing time for the San Diego Chargers players on offense and defense. This week, we see who contributed to the enormous upset of the Seattle Seahawks.

By Richard Wade
Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Week 2 of the regular season may end up being the highlight of the regular season, and that's even if the team has a strong year. The San Diego Chargers dominated on offense and defense in a way that no sane person thought they could against the defending Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks.

First, we'll start by looking at the playing time breakdown on offense:

Pos. Name W2 Snaps "% of Total W2" W1 Snaps "% of Total W1" "WoW% Change"
G Chad Rinehart 82 100% 61 100% 0%
C Rich Ohrnberger 82 100% 46 75% 25%
G Johnnie Troutman 82 100% 61 100% 0%
T D.J. Fluker 82 100% 61 100% 0%
QB Philip Rivers 82 100% 61 100% 0%
WR Keenan Allen 79 96% 60 98% -2%
T King Dunlap 73 89% 61 100% -11%
WR Malcom Floyd 71 87% 53 87% 0%
WR Eddie Royal 57 70% 37 61% 9%
TE Antonio Gates 41 50% 52 85% -35%
RB Danny Woodhead 38 46% 29 48% -1%
TE Ladarius Green 26 32% 24 39% -8%
TE David Johnson 24 29% 9 15% 15%
RB Donald Brown 23 28% 11 18% 10%
TE John Phillips 23 28% 7 11% 17%
RB Ryan Mathews 23 28% 23 38% -10%
T Willie Smith 9 11% 0 0% 11%
WR Seyi Ajirotutu 5 6% 0 0% 6%
C Nick Hardwick 0 0% 15 25% -25%

Interestingly, the biggest difference from last week was a reduction in snaps (on a percentage basis) for Antonio Gates, and an increase in playing time for John Phillips and David Johnson. Without having had a chance to review the game yet, it would seem a possible explanation for this was that Phillips and Johnson sucked up some of the blocking duties from Gates and freed him to be a receiver. The other interesting takeaway here is that Mathews' lost snaps seem to have all gone to Donald Brown as Danny Woodhead actually lost playing time, though this could just be from trying to run more of a ball control, clock killing type of offense.

Next, we'll take a look at the defensive snaps:

Pos. Name W2 Snaps "% of Total W2" W1 Snaps "% of Total W1" "WoW% Change"
FS Eric Weddle 40 100% 66 94% 6%
CB Jason Verrett 40 100% 43 61% 39%
SS Marcus Gilchrist 40 100% 70 100% 0%
CB Shareece Wright 40 100% 70 100% 0%
CB Richard Marshall 37 93% 26 37% 55%
LB Donald Butler 37 93% 70 100% -8%
LB Melvin Ingram 37 93% 45 64% 28%
DE Corey Liuget 34 85% 54 77% 8%
DE Kendall Reyes 30 75% 56 80% -5%
LB Dwight Freeney 30 75% 44 63% 12%
LB Manti Te'o 25 63% 48 69% -6%
CB Steve Williams 15 38% 2 3% 35%
LB Jeremiah Attaochu 9 23% 19 27% -5%
DE Lawrence Guy 6 15% 22 31% -16%
DE Tenny Palepoi 6 15% 8 11% 4%
LB Tourek Williams 5 13% 0 0% 13%
SS Darrell Stuckey 4 10% 0 0% 10%
DT Sean Lissemore 3 8% 21 30% -23%
LB Reggie Walker 2 5% 0 0% 5%
CB Brandon Flowers 0 0% 70 100% -100%
LB Jarret Johnson 0 0% 36 51% -51%

Obviously, the biggest difference this week was the loss of Brandon Flowers and Jarret Johnson. Increases in playing time went to Verrett, Marshall, Ingram and Williams. You'd think that this would weaken the defense what with Marshall generally being terrible, Ingram being mediocre, and both Verrett and Williams being untested. Fortunately, that was not the case as the rookie Verrett was stellar and Melvin Ingram played perhaps the best game of his still young career. Overall, though, the biggest reason for the defense's success was probably that they had to defend half as many plays as the opposition did thanks to an incredible time of possession difference.

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