Five most important Kansas City Chiefs for the playoff run
Juan Thornhill
Maybe it is unfair, but I do not think so: safety Juan Thornhill has been the biggest disappointment on the team this year. At this point, he should be fully recovered from the ACL injury that ended his rookie campaign. So, one of two things is true: Either he is playing injured, or he has simply regressed.
If Thornhill is playing injured, the team should be ashamed of what it is doing to the play on the field and to the player/person that Thornhill is. There is absolutely no reason why they should have been playing him up to this point if he was not or is not 100 percent. The Chiefs did not need him to make the playoffs, and frankly he hasn’t really helped them win games. If he’s hurt, he should have been on Injured Reserve until (at least) right around this time of the season.
If he has regressed, the Chiefs need him to quickly regain his form. It is absolutely code red for the defense at this point. During the offseason, general manager Brett Veach decided against investing in real insurance for the 2019 standout, seemingly betting on his health in the process. If he has lost that bet, it is bad news for the January campaign of Kansas City.
Spagnuolo only has three options if Thornhill is not playing up to speed, and we’ve seen all three tried (and failed) this season.
Option 1: Play Thornhill while he’s executing poorly. If this were working we wouldn’t be writing this part of the column.
Option 2: Play Daniel Sorensen as the team’s deep cover, center fielder type safety. Sorensen has come up with some big plays for Kansas City over the last couple of years, and yes I am a bit of a hater, but if you think he should be the over the top coverage for fast receivers in a postseason game, you are simply wearing beer goggles about his play. Sorensen is an instinctual player who mostly tackles well and makes his living on field IQ. That’s great. He’s valuable, for sure. But he’s also slow, has bad cover form and little body control which makes him a poor option to cover skilled receivers, especially fast ones.
Option 3: Play Tyrann Mathieu deep. Mathieu is excellent in coverage and does a fair job in this back-end safety role. However, playing him there makes the rest of the defense, especially underneath and across the middle, much worse (more later).
Thornhill playing as well as he did pre-injury in 2019 is critical for this defense in the playoffs. His peak play not only gives Kansas City its deep coverage option on the defense, but it also frees up Mathieu and Sorensen to play positions they’re better suited to play. Thornhill holds the key to effective secondary play for this team, which is imperative to their success in the playoffs.