Raiders week 11 snap counts vs Patriots: Sean Smith seeing increased playing time, not that Raiders have much choice

In week five against the Ravens, Sean Smith hit rock bottom. The Raiders lost their third straight game and he was a major reason for the loss. The following week, he was glued to the sideline. And every game since then, he’s been coming off the bench.

His snap counts have gone up each week from week 7-9, going from 19 to 29 to 53. The team has been giving him more time mostly due to injuries at the position, but after a solid week in Miami, he played the second most snaps at cornerback for the Raiders in Mexico City against the Patriots.

Carrie once again played every snap (67), and despite rookie Obi Melifonwu getting the start opposite him, it was Smith who got the second most snaps (43) while Melifonwu played 26 snaps.

Meanwhile Dexter McDonald, who had been getting snaps ahead of Smith, saw just 8 snaps on defense following a horrid performance in Miami and was a major factor in how Jay Cutler started the game 16 of 16.

Other notable snap counts was Seth Roberts (59) seeing more snaps than Michael Crabtree (58), DeAndre Washington leading the running backs in snaps (24). Though much of that was due to the game being out of hand before the start of the fourth quarter.