The Chiefs’ 35-12 blowout of the Jets in Week 9 came with the usual snap-count distortion you get in a lopsided game. Starters sat, backups ran, and the numbers got a little messy. Still, even in a rout, a few usage trends stood out.
One of the biggest questions hanging over Kansas City right now is how the wide receiver room will look after Tuesday’s trade deadline. The Chiefs have been leaning on Andrew Armstrong, Cyrus Allen, and Jalen Royals in secondary roles, and the snap counts over the last two games show just how closely those three have been stacked together.
Allen’s workload has swung the most, but Armstrong has actually reached higher snap totals than him at times, while Royals’ role has shifted after filling in for Rashee Rice during his hamstring absence. That makes the post-deadline pecking order tough to read, especially with a move at receiver looking likely.
The tight end room offered a different kind of surprise. Jared Wiley, who had mostly been stuck on the outside looking in after losing the TE3 battle to Jake Briningstool out of camp, got a real bump against New York.
He had played only one offensive snap in Week 7 against the Seahawks, but on Sunday he was out there for seven. Even with the game out of hand, that’s a meaningful jump.
It also meant Kansas City had four tight ends active, which is worth watching as the season moves on. With wide receiver depth still thin before the deadline, the Chiefs could keep looking for pass-catching help elsewhere-or even explore help at tight end if the market for receivers gets too expensive.
Dallas Goedert, perhaps?
On the defensive side, Jeffrey Bassa’s usage keeps raising eyebrows. Chiefs fans have already spent much of the season watching Jack Cochrane struggle at times in coverage after Leo Chenal’s departure, and Bassa was supposed to be one of the young linebackers who could help.
Instead, he’s barely been on the field. He played just one snap against the Jets, after one in Week 8 against the Broncos, two in Week 7 against the Seahawks, and two more in Week 6 against the Chargers.
For the most athletic linebacker on the roster to be getting the fewest snaps says plenty, and it’s clear the coaching staff still isn’t ready to trust him beyond special teams.
Then there’s Ashton Gillotte, whose season has started to turn in a much more encouraging direction. A ruptured plantar fascia in mid-August slowed down what was supposed to be a big second-year step for the defensive end, and it left the Chiefs looking thinner off the edge than they do now.
But since the Week 5 bye, Gillotte has worked his way back into the mix and earned more and more run. His snap share has climbed from 53 percent in Week 6 to 70 percent against the Jets.
He’s moving toward a starter’s workload opposite George Karlaftis, and the Chiefs appear to be treating him like a player whose role is only going to keep growing.
In Other News...
Chiefs Just Uncovered A New Weapon For Patrick Mahomes
The Chiefs got a much-needed lift in their win over the Jets, leaning on a balanced attack that gave Patrick Mahomes plenty of help. Mahomes finished 23 of 31 for 242 yards and two touchdowns, while Travis Kelce chipped in with four catches for 72 yards and even found the end zone on the ground. Kansas Citys defense did its part too, piling up five sacks and keeping New York out of the end zone.
What stood out most was the way Kenneth Walker III fit into the offense, turning his touches into a major problem for the Jets. He ran for 102 yards and scored three times, giving the Chiefs a versatile threat who changed the game in more than one way. For a team looking to keep its offense dangerous and unpredictable, that kind of production is exactly the sort of development that can open things up for Mahomes going forward. [Read more 🡒]
Chiefs Fans Can Only Laugh As Chargers Rivalry Keeps Getting Sadder
With the Chiefs sitting at 6-2 and coming off a 35-12 win over the Jets, Kansas City is once again in the familiar place of thinking about the postseason while the rest of the division tries to keep up. The contrast with the Chargers could hardly be sharper. Los Angeles has stumbled to an 0-8 start, and what was supposed to be a season built around expectation has instead turned into a weekly exercise in damage control.
For Chiefs fans, the rivalry has become less about scoreboard drama and more about watching a division foe sink further from relevance. The Chargers have managed only a handful of scoring plays and have spent long stretches without finding the end zone, a staggering fall for a team with this much talent on paper. Under Mike McDaniel and with Justin Herbert at quarterback, the results have been nowhere near what anyone in Los Angeles envisioned, and from Kansas Citys side, it is hard not to laugh at how lopsided the AFC West picture has become. [Read more 🡒]
Mahomes And Kelce Just Added To Their Chiefs Legacy
Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce have spent the better part of a decade turning the Chiefs passing game into one of the NFLs defining partnerships, and now theyve added another line to an already crowded legacy. The two have been tied together since 2018, with Kelce on the field for nearly every Mahomes start and the tight end continuing to stack up record-setting production along the way.
What makes this latest milestone stand out is how long the connection has lasted and how little it has faded. Mahomes and Kelce are into their ninth season together, and the chemistry between them has become such a fixture in Kansas City that it now sits alongside the leagues all-time marks for a quarterback-tight end tandem, a reminder that their story is still being written even as the records keep falling. [Read more 🡒]