Taking a look at playing time percentages of Patriots' defensive players from the team's 20-18 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, as charted by NFL Media relations:
|
Name |
POS |
Snaps |
Play % |
|
Devin McCourty |
CB |
65 |
100% |
|
Jerod Mayo |
LB |
63 |
97% |
|
Rob Ninkovich |
DE |
61 |
94% |
|
Kyle Arrington |
CB |
60 |
92% |
|
Pat Chung |
SS |
59 |
91% |
|
Chandler Jones |
DE |
59 |
91% |
|
Vince Wilfork |
DT |
58 |
89% |
|
Steve Gregory |
FS |
56 |
86% |
|
Kyle Love |
DT |
51 |
78% |
|
Brandon Spikes |
LB |
51 |
78% |
|
Dont'a Hightower |
LB |
42 |
65% |
|
Sterling Moore |
CB |
31 |
48% |
|
Tavon Wilson |
DB |
18 |
28% |
|
Jermaine Cunningham |
DL |
15 |
23% |
|
Brandon Deaderick |
DL |
13 |
20% |
|
Ron Brace |
DT |
13 |
20% |
Thoughts on the playing time percentages after the jump!
What stands out?
- Sterling Moore took Ras-I Dowling place on the depth chart, playing 48% of the snaps as the team's fifth defensive back. Dowling didn't register a single snap. We'll see if that was a simple week-to-week change, or if Dowling actually has been passed on the depth chart.
- One Patriots player went start-to-finish: cornerback Devin McCourty. Other players to play high snap counts (89%+) included Jerod Mayo, Rob Ninkovich, Kyle Arrington, Patrick Chung, Chandler Jones, and Vince Wilfork. Very interesting to see Jones play such a high snap total as a rookie - after just two games, it's clear that he's going to be the type of player who plays all three downs are rarely comes off the field.
- Brandon Spikes played a particularly high number of snaps, showing up in many of the Patriots' sub-packages. In total, Spikes played 78% of the snaps compared to Hightower's 65% - showing that Spikes has earned an opportunity to be a three down player, despite the fast development of the rookie Hightower.
- No increase in snaps for Jermaine Cunningham - as both Chandler Jones (91%) and Rob Ninkovich (94%) were on the field for the majority of the game. Cunningham played only 15 snap (23%)s, and showed up on the box score with one tackle. Count me as someone who'd like to see Cunningham get that number up to around 50% of the snaps.
- The Patriots only had 16 total players take snaps on defense Sunday. The five back-ups seemingly in the rotation: Sterling Moore, Jermaine Cunningham, Ron Brace, Brandon Deaderick, and Tavon Wilson.