St. Louis Rams vs. Seattle Seahawks: Snap Counts, Playing Time And Personnel Analysis

Offense

The first big notable here is Tavon Austin's usage which is way up from 2014. Early in the season, he was frequently being used under half of all snaps under Brian Schottenheimer. He finished the season featuring in just over the 50% threshold. Cignetti and Fisher clearly intend to make more use of him, at least for the time being.

Bear in mind, these numbers come without the services of RB Todd Gurley, RB Tre Mason or WR Brian Quick.

Those absences meant the window was open for a lot of two-TE looks with Lance Kendricks and Jared Cook.

No official explanation of the early Garrett Reynolds substitution for Jamon Brown. Between injury, equipment and performance, I don't know which one to favor, but you'd think an equipment issue wouldn't take that long, so...

Defense

The Rams are not just a nickel base team. They barely even used Akeem Ayers yesterday.

And the rotation on that D-line is wild. Eight players and all over 25% of snaps. You have to wonder how many teams are going to push tempo on some drives to negate substitutions for the Rams. With a six sack performance like yesterday, even though one of the sacks was by Lamarcus Joyner on the blitz, teams are going to implement strategic impediments to neutralize the pass rush to the maximum degree. Most teams don't have quarterbacks as mobile and as crafty as Russell Wilson. A pocket passer not only would've likely gotten sacked more, but the risk of fumble and injury is higher as well (see: Nick Foles' fumble six...).

The real interesting angle here for me all season is the bottom three guys in that table: S Mark Barron, DT Nick Fairley and LB Akeem Ayers. Those are the only defenders not drafted by the Rams, brought in solely to supplement the starters at their positions. How HC Jeff Fisher and DC Gregg Williams rotate them is going to be interesting especially depending on the opponent.

Special Teams

That's Bryce Hager, Cameron Lynch and Bradley Marquez showing you how to make a 53-man roster as a UDFA. And of course, shout out to Marquez who had the hands ready on that overtime onside kick that motivated referee Jeff Triplette to tear the entire asunder with his butchery of the NFL rulebook and replay capabilities.

Short sample size, obviously, but we'll have more data to play with over the next few weeks as we see how the Rams adjust to any injuries and begin to implement the currently injured Rams who weren't able to go in week 1.