Safety: Juan Thornhill – Virginia
Juan Thornhill is right up there with my biggest draft crushes in this draft class. I love the guy. In fact, he’s probably my number one safety in this class, period. If the Chiefs are going to go safety in the first round, I’d rather have Thornhill over Delaware’s Nasir Adderly. Thornhill is an inch taller, faster, and better in run support. Adderly may be a better pure free safety, but Thornhill is more versatile. He lines up as a single high safety, a box safety, a nickel cornerback, and he does it all well.
Pairing Thornhill with Tyrann Mathieu would give the Chiefs two dynamic safeties that can both fill multiple roles and would give Steve Spagnuolo a ton of options of how to use his secondary to keep offenses guessing. While safety may not be as high on my need list as cornerback, Thornhill is still one of my favorite prospects in this draft and I would be just fine with the Chiefs taking him with the 29th pick because I simply don’t believe he will make it very far into the second round (despite what some mock drafts would have you believe).
Here's the first in what will be a daily video series from now until the draft...getting familiar with some of the names you'll hear on draft weekend.
— Chiefs Reporter (@ChiefsReporter) March 20, 2019
We're starting with the versatile Virginia defensive back, Juan Thornhill. pic.twitter.com/po7IbM7p0B
Runner Up: Darnell Savage – Maryland
Darnell Savage is a really fun prospect to watch. He’s undersized (5-foot-10, 198 pounds) but blazing fast for a safety and he injects the defense with a lot of energy. He may need to be more of a nickel back in the NFL, which is ultimately why I’m not as high on him as Thornhill. Still, there aren’t a lot of safety prospects that are as high energy or as fast (4.36 seconds in the 40-yard dash) and the Chiefs defense has been sorely missing both of those things in recent years.
Savage would give the Chiefs another fun defensive tool to pair with Tyrann Mathieu. My only worry is if the Chiefs feel he is more of a nickel corner than a true safety and they like Kendall Fuller in the nickel corner will there be enough playing time to go around early in Savage’s career?
So there you have it Chiefs fans my 2019 All Draft Crush Team for the upcoming draft. What do you think? Do you like these guys as much as I do? Who are some of your top draft crushes in this draft class? I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments below and can’t wait until Thursday to see who the Chiefs end up drafting.