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Cardinals Week 1 Snap Counts vs. Chiefs

Here's how the snap counts shaped up for the Arizona Cardinals last week.

That was 60 minutes of Arizona Cardinals football nobody wants to repeat. 

The 44-21 blowout loss to the Kansas City Chiefs is already in the rearview mirror, as the Cardinals march forward to Week 2 of the regular season. 

Snap counts from yesterday are already released, as we're able to paint a better picture of the game plan we saw from Kliff Kingsbury and company:

Offensive Snap Counts

Arizona Cardinals Offensive Snap Counts

One of the biggest questions Arizona faced heading into Sunday was what the guard situation would look like. The Cardinals would end up placing Cody Ford on IR and missing Justin Pugh as a game time decision, boiling down the left guard spot to either Max Garcia (freshly signed off the practice squad of the New York Giants) and Sean Harlow. 

Harlow would end up winning the job and was just one of two players to play every snap on offense, matching D.J. Humphries. 

Head coach Kliff Kingsbury mentioned the Cardinals wanting to take the load off James Conner, who played 72% of offensive snaps. Eno Benjamin was the only back to see the field, mostly coming in the second half when Arizona trailed heavily. 

The receiver's room carried intrigue without DeAndre Hopkins and Rondale Moore to boast, as it was largely the Marquise Brown/Greg Dortch show. A.J. Green was on the field for nearly 74% of snaps but was nothing short of a decoy, amassing just two receptions. 

Tight end Trey McBride was inactive, as Kingsbury later explained Arizona believes he still has some way to go and trusted the other three tight ends more in this situation. Stephen Anderson and Maxx Williams saw a fair amount of snaps under the presence of Zach Ertz, who didn't register a reception until the third quarter. 

Defensive Snap Counts

Arizona Cardinals Defensive Snap Counts

Only two defensive players played every single snap, with those honors belonging to Byron Murphy and Jalen Thompson. 

With so much depth already missing out of the secondary (particularly at corner), the Cardinals opted to use Murphy and Marco Wilson as boundary guys while utilizing linebacker Isaiah Simmons as more of a nickelback. 

Simmons played 87% of snaps, while fellow inside linebackers Zaven Collins (95.7%) and Nick Vigil (51.4%) manned inside duties. 

Arizona tried their best to rotate six defensive linemen, although just Zach Allen and Michael Dogbe played over half of the snaps. 

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