The Patriots laid an egg on opening night against the Chiefs, but nonetheless here's the participation report from Week 1 along with some knee-jerk analysis.
Player | Snaps | Snap % |
Tom Brady | 81 | 100.0 |
Nate Solder | 81 | 100.0 |
Marcus Cannon | 81 | 100.0 |
Shaq Mason | 81 | 100.0 |
Joe Thuney | 81 | 100.0 |
David Andrews | 81 | 100.0 |
Rob Gronkowski | 78 | 96.3 |
Chris Hogan | 73 | 90.1 |
Brandin Cooks | 67 | 82.7 |
James White | 43 | 53.1 |
Danny Amendola | 32 | 39.5 |
Dwayne Allen | 27 | 33.3 |
Mike Gillislee | 24 | 29.6 |
James Develin | 19 | 23.5 |
Phillip Dorsett | 18 | 22.2 |
Rex Burkhead | 10 | 12.3 |
Dion Lewis | 6 | 7.4 |
Analysis: The story heading into the night was how the Patriots would handle the running back position, and we did get some answers. It was mostly the James White, Mike Gillislee show in the backfield. White led the way with 43 snaps, and set career highs in rush attempts (10) and rushing yards (38) to go along with three receptions for 30 yards. Gillislee got most of the goal line work (3 TDs), and led the team in rushing with 45 yards.
It wasn't the debut some were expecting for Rex Burkhead, however. Burkhead only saw the field for 10 snaps on offense.
It's also worth noting that in his first meaningful game since Week 12 of last season, Rob Gronkowski played in 78 of 81 possible snaps. Gronk wasn't fully back yet in terms of effectiveness, but that's a good sign that he's healthy.
Player | Snaps | Snap % |
Kyle Van Noy | 68 | 100.0 |
Trey Flowers | 68 | 100.0 |
Stephon Gilmore | 68 | 100.0 |
Malcom Butler | 68 | 100.0 |
Devin McCourty | 67 | 98.5 |
Duron Harmon | 62 | 91.2 |
Malcom Brown | 48 | 70.6 |
Patrick Chung | 45 | 66.2 |
Alan Branch | 42 | 61.8 |
Jordan Richards | 41 | 60.3 |
Eric Rowe | 36 | 52.9 |
Dont'a Hightower | 35 | 51.5 |
Lawrence Guy | 26 | 38.2 |
Cassius Marsh | 23 | 33.8 |
Adam Butler | 20 | 29.4 |
Deatrich Wise | 17 | 25.0 |
Elandon Roberts | 9 | 13.2 |
Jonathan Jones | 3 | 4.4 |
David Harris | 2 | 2.9 |
Analysis: The surprise of the night, other than the final score, was that third-year safety Jordan Richards played in 60% of the teams snaps on defense. Richards played a unique role for a safety as an edge setting linebacker, and the results weren't great to say the least.
Other notables include rookies Adam Butler (20 snaps) and Deatrich Wise (17 snaps) who both were effective in the pass rush despite limited opportunities. Due to injury we haven't seen Wise all that much yet, but he delivered a solid performance with two pressures on just seven pass rush snaps.
Dont'a Hightower was limited to just 35 snaps (51.5%) due to injury, which is certainly something to monitor in the next few days.
(h/t to the guys at Pro Football Focus for confirmation on these numbers: https://www.profootballfocus.