Snap counts and discussion from the road loss to the Chargers

Who played and who didn’t during the Denver Broncos Week 16 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.

The game-day inactives for the game between the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Chargers were: Zach Wilson, Riley Moss, Jaleel McLaughlin, Levi Wallace, Levelle Bailey, Frank Crum, and Matt Henningsen. Moss and McLaughlin were still injured, the rest were healthy scratches.

Offense

The entire offensive line and Bo Nix played every offensive snap. Matt Peart got four snaps as the 6th offensive lineman.

Michael Burton played only 10 offensive snaps, but had a large impact when he was in the game.

Javonte Williams got 33 offensive snaps and did very little with with his 11 touches (gaining 53 yards, 24 rushing and 29 receiving, and four first downs). Audric Estime got 13 offensive snaps and Blake Watson got 10. Estime accounted for 48 yards on his nine touches and Watson accounted for 23 on his four touches. Estime was not targetted in the passing game and was only in the game on four plays where he was NOT carrying the ball. That seems like it would be pretty easy for the defense to figure out that he his getting the ball when he is in the game. Targeting Williams 11 times in the passing game is recipe for failure.

Williams has lost the ability to break tackles. He broke 31 on 204 carries as a rookie. He also had two in the passing game that season on 43 catches. So on 247 touches as a rookie he broke 33 tackles and had one of the best broken tackle per touch rates in the NFL. This season he has seven broken tackles on 181 touches, with only 4 coming on his 134 rushes this season. The truth is he hasn’t been able to break tackles since his injury. His vision has never been good and he was never very fast. So without his ability to break tackles he is a plodder who goes down fairly easily and has a tendency to run into the back of his blockers. He is most definitely not the guy you want as your primary runner in any NFL offense.

Lucas Krull, Adam Trautman, and Nate Adkins got 28, 28 and 21 offensive snaps.

Courtland Sutton, Devaughn Vele, Marvin Mims, Troy Franklin, and Lil’Jordan Humphrey got 58, 36, 30, 26, and 23 snaps respectively. Sutton led the WRs in targets and catches with six targets, five catches for 50 yards.

Jarett Stidham was the only active offensive player to not appear in the game.

Defense

The only defensive player to play all 64 snaps was Pat Surtain.

Cody Barton missed one snap. At the other ILB, Justin Strnad played 57. Drew Sanders played one snap and got a sack on it.

At safety, Brandon Jones and PJ Locke both played 60 snaps. Devon Key and JL Skinner played five and four snaps.

Besides Surtain, the other CBs, Kris Abrams-Draine, Ja’Quan McMillian, and Damarri Mathis played 43, 43 and 19 snaps.

On the D Line Zach Allen, John Franklin-Myers, Jordan Jackson, Eyioma Uwazurike, Malcolm Roach, and D.J. Jones played 51, 25, 14, 13, 32, and 27 snaps. Allen was the only DL guy to get a QB pressure; he had four. Outside of Allen, the rest of the vaunted Bronco pass rush was held mostly in check with only eight total pressures on Justin Herbert.

At OLB Jonathon Cooper, Nik Bonitto, Jonah Elliss, and Dondrea Tillman 45, 45, 22, and 20 snaps.

Position players who only played on special teams were Tremon Smith, Zach Cunningham, Alex Forsyth, and Alex Palczewski.