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San Diego Chargers Snap Counts: Week 13 vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Breaking down the Chargers play time percentage in their Week 13 loss vs the Bucs

NFL: Tampa Bay Buccaneers at San Diego Chargers Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Another 4th quarter, single digit loss to a team the Chargers should have beaten. There are areas that the Chargers need to fix, but let’s look at the snap count this week to figure out how playing time could be attributed to another 4th quarter heartbreaker. A common theme in earlier snap count articles from this season was a Chargers’ loss and more snaps on defense than offense. While this theme seems somewhat broad or conclusory, it has almost held true for each Chargers’ loss. We will look at the offense and defense to analyze each squad’s play time percentage (some players are not on the snap count list, because they did not participate on offense or defense last week and this week; however, they may have seen special teams snaps).

Chargers’ Offense:

Pos. Name W12 Snaps "% of Total W12" W13 Snaps % of Total W13 Snaps WoW % Change
QB Philip Rivers 59 100% 55 100% 0%
C Matt Slauson 59 100% 55 100% 0%
T King Dunlap 59 100% 55 100% 0%
G Orlando Franklin 59 100% 55 100% 0%
T Joe Barksdale 59 100% 55 100% 0%
WR Dontrelle Inman 55 93% 53 96% 3%
WR Tyrell Wiliams 51 86% 53 96% 10%
G D.J. Fluker 59 100% 52 95% -5%
RB Melvin Gordon 53 90% 49 89% -1%
WR Travis Benjamin 38 64% 43 78% 14%
TE Antonio Gates 36 61% 33 60% -1%
TE Hunter Henry 30 51% 24 44% -7%
TE Sean McGrath 13 22% 6 11% -11%
RB Kenneth Farrow 6 10% 6 11% 1%
FB Derek Watt 7 12% 5 9% -3%
C Spencer Pulley 0 0% 3 5% 5%
WR Jeremy Butler 3 5% 2 4% -1%
G Kenny Wiggins 3 5% 1 2% -3%

While there wasn’t much of a difference from Week 12 to Week 13, we can see who was involved in the snaps for the majority of this game. We saw a little more involvement from Tyrell Williams and Travis Benjamin, but a common narrative is “Give Melvin Gordon the ball more.” While he has maintained a steady amount of snaps, seeing 89% of snaps on offense, people are crying out for more MGIII. Why not more MGIII when we’ve seen flashes of hero ball from Phillip Rivers? It will be interesting to see if the play calling changes at all in the next few weeks. MGIII has been racking up yards and has been scoring almost every week. At this point in the season, why not give him the ball more and keep building his confidence for next season? Ronnie Hillman hasn’t seen the field, so we’ll have to see how he fits into the offense and how many snaps he’ll take away from MGIII and Kenneth Farrow.

Chargers’ Defense:

Pos. Name W12 Snaps "% of Total W12" W13 Snaps % of Total W13 Snaps WoW % Change
CB Craig Mager 68 97% 65 100% 3%
SS Jahleel Addae 66 94% 65 100% 6%
CB Casey Hayward 68 97% 64 98% 1%
LB Korey Toomer 68 97% 62 95% -2%
LB Denzel Perryman 43 61% 60 92% 31%
LB Melvin Ingram 64 91% 57 88% -3%
SS Adrian Phillips 28 40% 56 86% 46%
DT Corey Liuget 42 60% 54 83% 23%
DE Joey Bosa 57 81% 49 75% -6%
NT Damion Square 39 56% 44 68% 12%
CB Trevor Williams 54 77% 37 57% -20%
LB Kyle Emanuel 36 51% 36 55% 4%
DT Tenny Palepoi 19 27% 18 28% 1%
FS Dwight Lowery 70 100% 13 20% -80%
DE Darius Philon 12 17% 12 18% 1%
NT Ryan Carrethers 0 0% 10 15% 15%
LB Chris Landrum 15 21% 7 11% -10%
LB Tourek Williams 2 3% 6 9% 6%
LB Jerry Attaochu 18 26% 0 0% -26%
FS Dexter McCoil 1 1% 0 0% -1%

For the first time in what seems like forever, Dwight Lowery is not at the top of the snap count list. His hand injury really set him back this week and his playing time percentage really took a hit (-80% change in snaps from Week 12 to Week 13). While he sat with the hand injury, Adrian Phillips saw more playing time. This defense has been plagued with injuries and the secondary is not the only group that is experiencing injury woes.

The exit of Jerry Attaochu and Brandon Mebane have hurt the front seven; however, Damion Square has been playing well and somewhat reliable after his return from his suspension. Attaochu was officially sent to the IR list last week and we saw the return of Ryan Carrethers who immediately hit the field as soon as he became active.

The lack of a consistent lineup and the number of defensive snaps could be a couple of reasons why the Chargers’ defense gets beat late in the 4th quarter. There are many gaps that the Chargers could improve on, but landing a top-10 pick in the 2017 NFL Draft could help them land another defensive stud, like Joey Bosa.

We will break down the Chargers’ playing time next week when they visit the Panthers.