I'm always interested in snap counts, but I wish rankings like this would indicate whether a player missed any games due to injury, being signed/activated mid-season, etc. That can really change the interpretation of the raw total.
That's a great point.
Let's start at tackle.
4. Matt Light (1034) 91.18%
8. Nate Solder (862) 76.01%
13. Sebastian Vollmer (336) 29.63%
You could speculate that about 8% of the snaps Light missed went to Solder, bringing Solder's percentage down to about 68% - which would all be replacing Vollmer's snaps (about 98% between the two of them). The wild card in all this is how much time Solder was at TE.
On the other hand you have this at WR, which was not injury related:
9. Deion Branch (820) 72.31%
15. Chad Ochocinco (324) 28.57%
Again, that adds up to close to 100% of the snaps.
Back to the line, you have this for the interior OL:
2. Brian Waters (1111) 97.97%
6. Logan Mankins (990) 87.3%
10. Dan Connolly (764) 67.37%
14. Ryan Wendell (328) 28.92%
17. Marcus Cannon (157) 13.84%
19. Nick McDonald (106) 9.35%
20. Donald Thomas (104) 9.17%
24. Dan Koppen (32) 2.82%
Based on the numbers further above I would guess that Cannon spent about 4-5% of his time at tackle (with Solder at TE) and the rest at guard. I had forgotten how much time Connolly missed, resulting in Wendell, McDonald and Thomas filling in at center due to his injury, as well as their getting playing time due to Mankins' injury.
The only thing to me that stands out is that I expected BJGE's percentage to be higher and Ridley's to be lower.
11. BenJarvus Green-Ellis (392) 34.57%
12. Danny Woodhead (367) 32.36%
16. Stevan Ridley (191) 16.84%
21. Kevin Faulk (87) 7.67%
25. Shane Vereen (26) 2.29%
26. Dane Fletcher (13) 1.15%
28. Lousaka Polite (10) 0.88%
Other than the split between BJGE and Woodhead at RB, there is a definite line between the starters and the backups; look at the dropoff after the number ten spot:
10. Dan Connolly (764) 67.37%
11. BenJarvus Green-Ellis (392) 34.57%
I think the number and percentage of defensive snaps might be more interesting to break down. Barring injury the only question on the 2011 Pats offense was which running back and whether or not Connolly would have replaced Koppen at some point. Other than Branch taking snaps away from Ochocinco I don't see anybody losing snaps due to ineffectiveness as opposed to injury. Defensive snaps are surely different.