Chiefs snap counts, Week 12: Juan Thornhill’s playing time rebounds

A closer look at the snap counts between the Chiefs and Buccaneers in Week 12.

With Week 12 in the books for the Kansas City Chiefs, we can now take a look at another week’s worth of playing time to see if it tells us anything important about the state of the roster—or at least how the Chiefs’ coaching staff views things. A change in the organizational temperature on Juan Thornhill is definitely one area of interest.

Leading up to Week 12, Thornhill has ridden a roller coaster ride of sorts when it comes to his expected playing time. This time last year, Thornhill was a promising rookie who looked like he and Tyrann Mathieu were turning into one of the best safety tandems in the league. Then came a late season ACL injury in Week 17 that not only kept him out of the postseason but forced Thornhill to rehab for the entire offseason.

To Thornhill’s credit, he put in the requisite work to be ready in the defensive backfield for the Chiefs when they opened their season against the Houston Texans on Thursday Night Football. Looking at his snap counts for the year, the Chiefs eased him with 64 percent of the snaps in that first game but he went on to play nearly every single defensive snap for the next five weeks.

Suddenly, against the Denver Broncos in Week 7, Thornhill’s playing time dropped to only 68 percent, rose back to 84 and 81 percent in the next two weeks, respectively, only to fall precipitously last week to 19 percent—a meager 11 snaps—against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 11 after the team’s bye.

Here’s what felt so telling about that particular game for Thornhill. It was clear that Dan Sorensen had already supplanted him for starter’s minutes in the Week 7 shift, but Thornhill also played his very first snaps on special teams on the year against the Raiders in Week 11. Suddenly he was being asked to less on defense but more on special teams. It felt as if Thornhill had been demoted on the depth chart but no one was officially acknowledging such an idea.

This week, Thornhill’s usage rose back to 69 percent of all snaps—tied with Anthony Hitchens—but he also played 52 percent of special teams snaps. He was back to more playing time on defense, but it’s also clear that the team is using him on special teams going forward. In short, Thornhill has clearly moved into a third safety role.

In other snap count notes:

Sammy Watkins played for the first time since Week 5 but he was able to play on 72 percent of the Chiefs offensive snaps, tied with Demarcus Robinson. That’s a good sign.

It’s not a large number, but it’s notable for our purposes here that Deon Yelder is earning more playing time as the year goes on—both on offense and special teams. Early in the season, he was barely registering any snaps in either facet, but he’s now averaging nearly double the snaps in both areas for K.C. He’s made the leap from just under 9 snaps on offense/game in the first six weeks to an average of 13.5 in the second six weeks (15 on Sunday).

Tershawn Wharton continues to demand more playing time as an undrafted rookie. On Sunday, Wharton played only two less snaps than Derrick Nnadi, Mike Pennel, and Mike Danna combined along the defensive line.

L’Jarius Sneed was an early season starter on the boundary, but it’s important to remember that Bashaud Breeland was suspended during that time before his injury. Sneed might still be easing into a full-time role, but it’s likely that his 52 percent playing time on defense might be a permanent thing as Breeland and Charvarius Ward hold down the outside.

Willie Gay, Jr. played a single defensive snap on Sunday. We don’t get it either.