The Chiefs’ preseason loss to the Rams wasn’t about the scoreboard so much as the workload. With most of the big names sitting out Saturday at Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City used the 20-12 defeat to get a longer look at players fighting for roles, snaps and, in some cases, a roster spot.
The clearest beneficiary was third-year safety Jaden Hicks. He logged a team-high 33 defensive snaps, started the game and stayed on the field through all four special teams phases: kickoff, kick return, punt and punt return. As Ron Kopp Jr. noted, the Chiefs had Hicks, tight end Jared Wiley, linebacker Jeffrey Bassa and linebacker Cole Christiansen on the field for the first snap of every special teams unit.
Hicks has mostly been behind Chamarri Conner and Alohi Gilman on the first-team defense during camp, but Conner’s absence opened the door for more work. Hicks made that time count.
Pro Football Focus had him at 16 snaps deep, 15 in the box and two in the slot. He finished with a team-high five solo tackles, two stops and one pass breakup.
That kind of extended game tape matters for defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, who needs real reps to sort out the secondary rotation. Practice work only goes so far. Saturday gave Hicks live competition and a much better chance to show where he fits.
On the other side of the ball, undrafted receiver Andrew Armstrong was one of the busiest players on the field. He matched quarterback Garrett Nussmeier with 41 snaps and added five more on special teams, leading all non-linemen in playing time.
Armstrong caught an early pass and pushed up the sideline, then got behind the defense on a deep shot toward the end zone, only to see Nussmeier overthrow him. He also did the dirty work in the run game, and former Chiefs tackle Mitchell Schwartz singled out one of his blocks on X: “Wide Receiver LAUNCH of the DB!!
Love these”
Armstrong has already made noise in camp as a receiver, but Saturday was his first real chance to do it against live contact. He didn’t waste the opportunity.
Another player with a notable usage pattern was fourth-year defensive end Felix Anudike-Uzomah. He finished fourth on the defense with 27 snaps, and 19 of them came off the edge.
The other eight were inside in the B-gap, according to PFF. No other Chiefs defensive end played an interior snap.
Kopp Jr. summed up the trend this way: “FAU aligned inside (B-gap) on 8 of his 27 plays Saturday per PFF. No other Chiefs DE recorded an interior snap.
Feels like he’s settling into a niche role in Spags’ NASCAR 3rd down packages”
That lines up with what’s been happening in camp, where Anudike-Uzomah has been working inside on dime fronts with Chris Jones, George Karlaftis and rookie R Mason Thomas. The addition of veteran Emmanuel Ogbah only strengthens the idea that Anudike-Uzomah is being slotted into a specific third-down job rather than asked to live full-time on the edge.
The official starters told the same story about how much Kansas City was holding back. On offense, the opening group was Josh Simmons, Kingsley Suamataia, Creed Humphrey, Kahlil Benson, Jaylon Moore, Justin Fields, Tyquan Thornton, Jalen Royals, Cyrus Allen, Kenneth Walker and Noah Gray. On defense, the first unit included Karlaftis, Jones, Khyiris Tonga, Anudike-Uzomah, Nick Bolton, Bassa, Christian Roland-Wallace, Nohl Williams, Melvin Smith, Hicks and Gilman.
A long list of veterans never got on the field at all, including Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Rashee Rice (knee), Trey Smith (hip), Conner, Drue Tranquill (back spasms), Mansoor Delane (shoulder), L’Jarius Sneed (knee) and others, according to the Chiefs’ official recap and reporting from The Kansas City Star.
The result won’t matter much in the bigger picture. The snaps will. Hicks got a heavy dose, Armstrong kept stacking his camp momentum, and Anudike-Uzomah showed another sign of where the Chiefs may want him when the games start counting.
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