Each week I’ll be taking a closer look at the snap count distribution for the Bucs offense and defense, assessing what we can learn from who played the most and who played the least on Sunday.

Offense

All five Bucs offensive linemen played every snap, and wide receivers Chris Godwin and Mike Evans only came off the field for a couple reps. That’s a strong indication that Evans’ hamstring wasn’t bothering him on Sunday, which is a great sign moving forward. No need to have him on a pitch count at all.

Scotty Miller dominated the WR3 snaps, as I expected he would, 43-to-11 over Justin Watson. Miller also enjoyed a career day, with six catches for 73 yards against the Saints and had one run for six yards.

In Tampa Bay’s crowded tight end room it was Rob Gronkowski who led the way with 54 snaps. He was quiet in the passing game with just two catches for 11 yards, but likely played so much because of the Bucs’ determination to establish the run early on. O.J. Howard was the better option in the passing game, with four catches on six targets for 36 yards and a touchdown, despite playing only 53 percent of the team’s snaps. Cam Brate was an afterthought with just seven snaps, most of them coming down in the red zone.

Everyone wanted to see how the running back room would sort itself out, and it was Ronald Jones leading the way as expected. I was definitely surprised that LeSean McCoy saw the field as much as he did, especially considering he didn’t carry the ball once and had just one catch for two yards. Leonard Fournette toted the rock five times for five yards, but did have one catch for 14 yards in the passing game while playing just nine snaps. When Fournette was in the game, he received the ball on most of those occasions.

Defense

In his rookie debut, Antoine Winfield, Jr. did not come off the field, another aspect of an impressive performance by the Minnesota product. In fact, the entire secondary almost went the distance, with Andrew Adams playing just six snaps as the team’s third safety.

The biggest takeaway is that Mike Edwards, the team’s starting safety throughout most of training camp, didn’t even see the field defensively on Sunday. I still think Edwards might be a better strong safety option than Jordan Whitehead, but his special teams gaffe in the kick return game won’t help him earn playing time in the coaches’ eyes.

Outside of the top 12 defenders (10 starters and then Jamel Dean in nickel, Will Gholston in base), almost no Bucs defenders saw the field. Jason Pierre-Paul played all but three snaps while Shaq Barrett stayed out there for all but eight. If they can maintain that workload, Anthony Nelson will have a hard time making an impression this season, but maybe that’s the idea. Gholston may have been the most impactful player on Sunday, registering seven tackles, including two tackles for loss in just 34 snaps.

Neither Lavonte David or Devin White came off the field on Sunday, and it’s a good thing for the Bucs defense they didn’t, as both were sensational. The only Bucs reserve to play a notable amount of snaps was Rakeem Nunez-Roches, the defensive line’s utility piece that helped give Vita Vea, Ndamukong Suh and Gholston a blow.

This is a huge workload for the Bucs starters, which is fine for Week 1, but likely not the plan moving forward. Eventually more of a reprieve will need to be given to the defensive line, but it’s good to know they can play a lot of snaps at a high level even without any preseason action to get them in game shape.