Cardinals vs. Chargers snap counts

With snap counts now available, let's look at the playing time distribution on offense and defense. The Arizona Cardinals had 70 offensive snaps and 61 defensive snaps.

On offense, quarterback Carson Palmer and most of the starting offensive line was on the field for every snap. Only Paul Fanaika played less than that. He was in for 69 of the 70 snaps. He came out for one play and Jonathan Cooper entered for the one Fanaika was not in the game.

At receiver, it was Michael Floyd that saw the most playing time. He was out there for 63 snaps. Larry Fitzgerald was for 60 snaps. John Brown played 39. Ted Ginn saw 17 snaps and Jaron Brown played five snaps.

At running back, Andre Ellington saw the same number of snaps as he did much of last year. He played 36 snaps. Jonathan Dwyer played 24, Robert Hughes played seven and Stepfan Taylor six (and he touched the ball on four of them).

Tight end John Carlson was on the field a lot -- 61 snaps. Rob Housler played 20 and rookie Troy Niklas only 12.

On defense, three players were on the field the entire time -- Rashad Johnson, Patrick Peterson and Larry Foote. They played all 61 defensive snaps.

Among the defensive backs after Johnson and Peterson, Antonio Cromartie played 59. I remember those two plays, as the defense went with eight in the box. One was the Ryan Mathews touchdown run. Tony Jefferson played 56 snaps, but I don't remember him ever coming out. Jerraud Powers played 38 and Deone Bucannon played 37, although he played "dollar" linebacker exclusively, based on what I saw. It says that Justin Bethel was on defense for one play. I have no idea when that happened.

Among the linebackers, Foote obviously led the way with all 61. Matt Shaughnessy was next with 40, then John Abraham with 36. Sam Acho played 31, Kevin Minter played 24 and Thomas Keiser played 14.

On the defensive line, Calais Campbell was out there for 58 snaps. Tommy Kelly got significant time with 47. Then it was Dan Williams with 21, Ed Stinson with 16, Alameda Ta'amu with seven and Frostee Rucker with only three. He left the game with an injury that appears will keep him out of this week's game, too.