Getty Images Chiefs safety Juan Thornhill played a season-low 11 snaps in Week 11.
One of the more confusing things transpiring on defense for the Kansas City Chiefs that has Chiefs Kingdom scratching their heads this season is the play of third-year defensive back, Juan Thornhill.
His playing time plummeted in Week 2 against the Baltimore Ravens after playing a majority of the defensive snaps in the regular-season opener (we will circle back to this later), which may have sparked a cryptic tweet from the third-year defensive back and signaled he could be in the Chiefs’ doghouse.
Taking all this s**t personal
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Thornhill’s Comeback
To understand how we’ve gotten to this point, context is necessary.
Thornhill, a second-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, is in his first season full healthy since tearing his ACL in Week 17 of the 2019 season. He did play in the 2020 season, however, it wasn’t until the postseason that, for those watching, could tell Thornhill was finally regaining the potential he had during his rookie season prior to his injury, which had earned him a spot on PFF’s all-rookie team for that season.
Juan Thornhill looks like he is getting fully recovered for last year’s injury.
He’s been flying around the field in the playoffs but this play is insane. Drives on the flat, goes under the rub, turns, and carries up the SL while locating the ball.
The momentum Thornhill had in the Chiefs’ Super Bowl run carried into this season, albeit playing with second and third stringers during the preseason. He had one of the best plays in the NFL in August, recording a diving interception against the Arizona Cardinals in Kansas City’s second preseason game.
THIS JUAN THORNHILL DIVING PICK 😱 @brgridiron
(via @Chiefs)
Thornhill’s Curious Case
With safety Tyrann Mathieu sidelined for the regular-season opener due to COVID, Thornhill drew the start alongside fellow safety Daniel Sorensen, playing 95% of the defensive snaps against the Cleveland Browns, per Pro Football Reference. In that game Thornhill was the fourth-highest graded defender on the Chiefs by PFF, earning a 67.6 overall grade. To put that into perspective, defensive lineman Chris Jones was Kansas City’s highest-graded defender in that game at 77.4 and was the only defensive player graded above a 70.
Then in Week 2 against the Ravens, Thornhill’s playing time plummeted.
Against the Lamar Jackson-led offense, Thornhill played just 14% of the defensive snaps, 11 snaps total, per Football Guys. That was the least amount of snaps given to any Chiefs defender that played in that game. Sorenson, who now leads the league in missed tackles through two weeks of the regular season with nine, per PFF, earned a majority of the snaps and got the start in favor of Thornhill that night, which is the same night Mathieu returned to the lineup as the other starting safety.
So, why the decrease in playing time for Thornhill?
“Juan’s [Thornhill] done a good job. He’s had spurts of good football, but what you’re asking about is a position change. A position change has got to be better when somebody’s not playing well, and we need improvement there,” Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo explained of the discrepancy in Thornhill’s snap counts between Weeks 1 and 2. “If you ask Dan [Sorensen], I’m sure he’d tell you he wants to play better. If you asked any of the 11 guys that play the positions on defense, I’m sure they’re going to tell you they want to play better.
“Juan’s done some good things for us; he just needs to earn his way back,” Spags continued. “Juan and I had a conversation on Tuesday. The first game without Tyrann [Mathieu], so Juan was out there a lot. In this game, Tyrann’s coming back and Dan’s in there. So, what did happen is the packages that Juan is in for, we weren’t in them very much. Baltimore kept us in our base package and there’s just two safeties out there. So, we’ll see where it goes. Before it’s all said and done, we’re going to need everybody, Juan, Dan, everybody.”
While Spagnuolo’s explanation does make a little bit of sense, a tweet fired off by Thornhill prior to the team’s Week 3 divisional game against the Los Angeles Chargers hints at the third-year defensive back being unhappy with his current situation with the team.
Thornhill’s Tweet, Spags Comments: Doghouse?
Friday evening Thornhill tweeted out five words, which steered the eyes of Chiefs Kingdom to his Twitter account:
“Taking all this s**t personal.”
While his tweet could mean a myriad of things given its vagueness, based on the comments from Spagnuolo this week about earning his way back — even though Thornhill seems to be the best safety not named Tyrann Mathieu on the Chiefs — Thornhill’s tweet has us thinking that he may be in the doghouse.
After a noticeably bad performance by Sorenson against Baltimore, the outing against the Chargers in Week 3 will ultimately tell if Thornhill is in fact digging himself out of a hole — for whatever reason — with the Chiefs coaching staff. And if it turns out that Thornhill is in the doghouse and is paying a price for it, then we may continue to see poor safety play alongside Mathieu in the secondary for at least the near future.