Colts vs Falcons Week 3: Snap Counts

With week three in the books and the Colts fighting their way to a 2-1 start to the season, we are getting to a point where we can begin to draw some conclusions about this team from their playing time. Simply looking at the snap counts won’t necessarily tell us the whole story, because each matchup changes the personnel needed to face them.

So let’s take a look at the week three snap counts and see what interesting tidbits we can find within.

Offensive Notes

• All 5 starting offensive linemen have played in every single offensive snap this season. That cohesion is invaluable in building trust for Brissett, who was probably partially afraid of his own shadow after being hit so frequently in the 2017 season.
• Despite having just 4 catches for 46 yards, Jack Doyle was in for 69% of the offensive snaps. His presence on the field as a blocker has been huge in the running game as well as in pass blocking.
• Deon Cain was in on 40 snaps but targeted just 3 times for 1 catch. With T.Y. Hilton suffering from a quad injury, they need more from the second year player.
• Parris Campbell seems to have been a big beneficiary of Hilton missing in the second half. He saw 32 snaps, which is nearly double his work in the first two weeks. They’ll need him to grow up fast if Hilton has to miss time.

Defensive Notes

• One surprise to me was that Bobby Okereke got nearly all the linebacker snaps in Darius Leonard’s absence. I thought there might be some time split between he and E.J. Speed. That definitely is telling about how they view the pecking order at the linebacker position.
• Malik Hooker was inexplicably off the field during the defense’s poorest stretch in the 3rd quarter. He played his fewest snaps all season and the broadcast team didn’t mention it. It will be interesting to hear the reason for that from Frank Reich.
• It isn’t surprising given his solid play from last week, but it was Khari Willis, not George Odum, who was getting snaps both in Hooker’s absence from the field and on certain defensive sets. The rookie has improved steadily every week.
• Rock Ya-Sin has gotten a consistently higher work rate than Quincy Wilson, and that was true this week as well. However, his snaps this week were down significantly since Pierre Desir was back for all of this game. It is certainly interesting that it was Ya-Sin and not Wilson whose snaps increased when Desir left the game.