Next Gen Stats show that Chiefs’ L’Jarius Sneed shut down the Jets’ best wide receiver

Pete Grathoff
·2 min read

Cornerback L’Jarius Sneed had just started an interview on CBS Sports following the Chiefs’ 23-20 win over the Jets when he was interrupted by a teammate.

It was wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who put an imaginary seatbelt on Sneed.

“Lock ‘em down,” Valdes-Scantling said of Sneed.

That’s just what Sneed did to Garrett Wilson, the Jets’ best wide receiver. Although Wilson caught nine passes for 60 yards on Sunday, he had just two receptions for 20 yards on six targets when guarded by Sneed, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats.

Sneed was lined up against Wilson on 60% of his routes.

Here are a couple of highlights from Sunday’s game of Sneed covering Wilson, who was the NFL’s offensive rookie of the year in 2022.

On one pass play, Sneed never let Wilson get past the line of scrimmage.

The big game by Sneed continued a season trend.

Next Gen Stats said Sneed has a 72.4% coverage success rate, which is third-best in the NFL. However, the completion percentage is wrong in this X message (14 out of 20 isn’t 48.3%).