What should we expect from the D minus Thornhill?

[493rd]

Next man up, sure. But does this injury seriously threaten our chances of winning the SB? Thornhill and Mathieu had our secondary buttoned down; what do you think we get now?

[ptlyon]

Ha. Thought that was a grade

[Chief Northman]

Fuller/Mathieu/Sorenson at safety with Watts sprinkled in.

Ward/Breeland/Fenton can hold down at corner. Claiborne should be ready in two weeks for depth....

I’m more concerned about our slow, plodding linebackers in pass coverage.

[OKchiefs]

Well, what the fuck happened to our D against LA? We all of a sudden decided to stop blitzing when it had been working so we'll? We forgot how to cover runningbacks again?

[Reerun_KC]

As long as we don’t face tannehill we should be okay. N

[ChiefBlueCFC]

Fuller playing as a safety prior to this week is going to be extremely beneficial in replacing him. Can see him as the primary replacement for Thornhill. Think it was either Nate Taylor or Seth Keysor who wrote about it in the athletic.

Hopefully Mo Claiborne and Breeland can get their injuries/issues resolved and be ready for the divisional round game

[mdchiefsfan]

I have faith that Matthieu will have whomever it is in the proper place and on the right page. Thank God they have an extra week to get some preparation/familiarity in.

[smithandrew051]

I don’t want to diminish what Thornhill brings, because he’s a very promising young player.

However, I think he’s benefitted a lot by playing next to Honey Badger. Spags will scheme something up to at least partially negate the loss. Watts made some decent plays this week too, so that helps.

[tatorhog]

I’m more concerned about our slow, plodding linebackers in pass coverage.

DoD was in some Sunday. Maybe he'll be a bigger part going forward.

[Eleazar]

As long as we don’t face tannehill we should be okay. N

quality cross-thread humor LMAO

[kcjayhawks5]

I don’t want to diminish what Thornhill brings, because he’s a very promising young player.

However, I think he’s benefitted a lot by playing next to Honey Badger. Spags will scheme something up to at least partially negate the loss. Watts made some decent plays this week too, so that helps.

I guess we will have to wait and see and hope this is the case. Thornhill was starting to become a very good tackler and his coverage skills were also very solid. Watts and co will have some big shoes to fill.

[Delano]

DoD was in some Sunday. Maybe he'll be a bigger part going forward.

Haven’t really seen much of Darren Lee lately.

[Warrick]

Haven’t really seen much of Darren Lee lately.

I remember those days when the defense was considered less than mediocre. I hope he stays on the bench and isn't needed.

[pugsnotdrugs19]

Thornhill goes out. Fuller takes his position. Watts takes Fuller’s spot in dime.

We will be ok. I believe. It hurts but as long as we can keep players in roles that fit their skill set, we will make it through.

[Delano]

Thornhill goes out. Fuller takes his position. Watts takes Fuller’s spot in dime.

We will be ok. I believe. It hurts but as long as we can keep players in roles that fit their skill set, we will make it through.

Is there a possibility Watts moves up and Fuller stays in dime because of his flexibility?

[493rd]

Watts was playing well before he got hurt so I hope he can pick up where he left off.

[Hoover]

Watt is going to return and get hurt again so he will miss most of 2020

[pugsnotdrugs19]

Is there a possibility Watts moves up and Fuller stays in dime because of his flexibility?

Well Fuller will probably play close to 100% of the snaps now regardless, but he’s going to do it in Thornhill’s vacated role of a high safety. Which I think he can do serviceably. Which will allow Watts to move around more closer to the LOS which favors his skill set IMO.

[BossChief]

Thornhill goes out. Fuller takes his position. Watts takes Fuller’s spot in dime.

We will be ok. I believe. It hurts but as long as we can keep players in roles that fit their skill set, we will make it through.

That’s where I’m at, too.

We will miss Juan’s speed and the communication aspect is also significant back there, but this defense will continue to contest every pass thrown and guys like Watts and Fuller can play well back there.

[comochiefsfan]

What I’m going to miss most about Juan is that he actually didn’t mind hitting someone. A lot of guys on this team have a tackling problem. Juan wasn’t one of them.

[tmax63]

At least they got the bye to work out what they want to do. Learning on the fly won't be ideal, but having the extra days to come up with an answer and alternatives is good.

[Flying High D]

Watt is going to return and get hurt again so he will miss most of 2020

That’s not a Berry nice thing to say.

[Delano]

What I’m going to miss most about Juan is that he actually didn’t mind hitting someone. A lot of guys on this team have a tackling problem. Juan wasn’t one of them.

I haven’t noticed Watts shy away from contact.

[Megatron96]

We're going to see a bit of a drop-off in efficiency. Hoping that it improves through the playoffs, but our secondary is probably going to be not quite what we've seen in recent weeks until Juan gets back next year.

this is not a knock on Watts or Fuller or anyone, btw. it's simply that the secondary and in particular HB and Juan had developed a chemistry that will be hard to replace/imitate in just a couple three weeks. Also, because of the loss of Juan, HB is going to have to play a bit more conservatively as well. This is probably going to have an effect on everything from the passing defense to the running game.

Now, I fully expect Spags and co. to make adjustments, but I'd be surprised if he could completely cover everything we're going to lose with the absence of Thornhill.

[Pitt Gorilla]

I think the loss hurts us significantly. Thornhill is a great athlete with great instincts who had begun mastering the mental side. None of his replacements come close to that.

[RunKC]

Here’s to hoping for Watts breaking out and making Sorenson expendable this Spring.

[rydogg58]

Here’s to hoping for Watts breaking out and making Sorenson expendable this Spring.

Sorenson is fine. I don't get the hatred for him. He definitely doesn't need to be starting, but he makes a good play ever now and then.

[carcosa]

Wbf

[BWillie]

I think we will see a noticeable drop off. Not enough to not make the AFC Championship game though.

[rabblerouser]

Well, what the **** happened to our D against LA? We all of a sudden decided to stop blitzing when it had been working so we'll? We forgot how to cover runningbacks again?

Went vanilla, didn't want to put stuff on tape. Didn't need to blitz. Didn't you watch the game?

[ChiefsFanatic]

I think the loss hurts us significantly. Thornhill is a great athlete with great instincts who had begun mastering the mental side. None of his replacements come close to that.Thornhill's speed will definitely be missed. Even if he initially made a bad read, his tremendous speed helped him erase that mistake. Plus his speed made it easier to disguise coverages because he could match up with a receiver just like HB.

His speed and versatility were probably the main reasons why Fuller started being flexed to safety so much.

I think that Spags has earned the benefit of the doubt, and he will make whatever adjustments needed to make up for the different skills of the replacements, but the play of Thornhill was a major reason why the defense had started to have so much success, and his absence will probably lead to some big plays by opposing offenses.

Sent from my GM1915 using Tapatalk

[KChiefs1]

https://theathletic.com/1503397/2020/01/02/chiefs-film-review-juan-thornhill-replacement-plan-patrick-mahomes-boring-day-staunch-run-d/

CHIEFS FILM REVIEW:
Juan Thornhill’s replacement plan
By Seth Keysor



Football is the most beautiful sport there is, in part because of how complex it is. Every play contains dozens of small stories, and it’s impossible to follow them all during a broadcast viewing. So every week at The Athletic, I’ll break down the big finds I see on film from each game and some tidbits that might have been missed. And, of course, Patrick Mahomes.

Chiefs safety Juan Thornhill is going to be impossible to replace completely.

The Chiefs rookie went down with a torn ACL while blitzing Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers Sunday to put an end to a stellar rookie season. Thornhill won the starting role out of the gate and has been on the field more than every defender except fellow safety Tyrann Mathieu and cornerback Charvarius Ward.

Thornhill possesses range that allows him to close passing lanes down the field while still threatening intermediate routes. He’s also a gutsy and active run defender who closes quickly and isn’t afraid to deliver big hits. And his instincts in reading quarterbacks have combined with his ball skills for some big moments throughout the season.

Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has recently built the back end of the defense around a talented and versatile safety group, and Thornhill has been one of the major pieces. No one else on the roster has his range, but Spagnuolo will be forced to try to find a way to keep the 6th-ranked pass defense (by DVOA) on track without one of its most important pieces.

The Chiefs responded to the loss of Thornhill in several ways with regards to personnel. First, safety Dan Sorensen saw his snap count increase from his usual number (approximately half) to all but one snap. The other was that second-year safety Armani Watts, who I really liked coming out of college, went from being almost exclusively a special teams player to seeing the field on 62% of the snaps. Additionally, Kendall Fuller continued the recent trend of playing more at safety than cornerback, one of the most interesting choices Spagnuolo has made all season.

Something to note is that while Thornhill was most frequently asked to play the role of single-high safety for the Chiefs, Spagnuolo did have other players rotate to that spot even before Thornhill was hurt.

Both Fuller and Sorensen were asked to man the deep portion of the field at times Sunday prior to Thornhill’s injury, often when Spagnuolo wanted Thornhill in man coverage closer to the line of scrimmage. So the positive news is that the Chiefs do have other players who have learned that role. Fuller appears to have better feet and range than Sorensen when asked to play deep.

Prior to Thornhill being injured, he played as a single-high safety on 6 snaps. Afterwards, the Chiefs chose to mostly go with Watts as the single-high safety (9 snaps), with Fuller (2) and Sorensen (3) filling in as well. However, it should be noted that after Thornhill’s departure the Chiefs more often went with 2 safeties on the back end. This could be due to the fact that the Chiefs were generally leading, but it also could be that they don’t believe the remaining defenders are as capable of patrolling passing lanes deep.

It should also be noted that the Chiefs only asked Mathieu to play the role of single-high safety a single time after Thornhill got hurt, which seems to be indicative that they value his versatility elsewhere too much to leave him on the back end. The combination of Watts/Fuller/Sorensen is what Chiefs fans are most likely to see moving forward, as the Chiefs have shown a clear determination to use multiple safeties often as opposed to their linebackers (who are ill-suited to coverage roles, as we’ll discuss below) as often as possible.

Something the Chiefs did even more of than normal after Thornhill was hurt was disguise and change coverages at the last moment to try and keep Rivers from recognizing what they were doing.

The Chiefs often showed looks similar to this one, creating the appearance that Watts would be single-high or perhaps part of a cover 3 look. After the snap on this particular play, the Chiefs sent fuller back and played with 2 deep safeties, having Sorensen come over to cover the receiver Fuller is covering before the snap. In the meantime, Mathieu came up the shallow portion of the field to help take away several routes (the ball was out too quickly to say if he was in man) and linebacker Ben Niemann dropped back to prevent throws up the seam.

One of the things Kansas City has going for them is that Mathieu and Fuller in particular can play literally any position in the secondary, and Sorensen has experience playing every safety position. This allows them to move players around and be tough to predict.


(Here’s the full play featuring Kansas City’s movement on the back end)


Here, the Chiefs are showing zone on the right side and man on the left side, with Watts and Mathieu playing the role of cover 2 safeties. Sorensen is threatening to blitz and could either be playing man on the running back or a shallow zone if he doesn’t. Fuller and Ward are outnumbered on the right side (creating the appearance of zone), with Niemann lined up right over the center.

The Chiefs stayed this way throughout Rivers’ usual frantic pre-snap gestures and changes at the line of scrimmage. Once the play clock started to wind down and after Rivers had finished his adjustments, the Chiefs started to shift their coverage.

As Rivers prepares to snap the ball, Fuller starts to move forward as though he’s going to blitz. In the meantime, Fenton shifts inside for a blitz of his own, and Mathieu starts to move to the left to take on a man role rather than his initial cover 2 look. This is a good example of how Mathieu’s versatility helps the Chiefs. very few safeties could be asked to play man coverage on a receiver as dangerous as Mike Williams. In the meantime, Watts drifts back as though he’ll be playing single-high.

Immediately after the snap, things go wrong for the Chargers. Both Fenton and Sorensen blitz from the left side. In the meantime, Niemann drops into coverage to prevent a quick throw to the tight end and defensive end Terrell Suggs (whose experience as an outside linebacker could be invaluable for situations like this one) sprints into the flat to help against any checkdowns that direction. Fuller drops back from his fake blitz to play as a safety over the top on the right side, while Watts moves to the left to help Mathieu deep.

The problem for the Chargers is that they had to account for Suggs, Niemann and Fuller in their protections on the left side, and now they have 4 offensive linemen blocking 2 pass rushers while the right tackle and running back face 3 rushers on their own. Even worse, 2 of those rushers are fast secondary players who can get home quickly.

This is right before Rivers releases the ball. Note that none of the routes on his left are realistically open despite the Chiefs sending an aggressive blitz thanks to how well Kansas City executed their assignments. He has pressure right in his face and his only decent option is hoping that Williams can beat Mathieu to the outside away from help. This is where Mathieu’s unique gifts come in to play, and he knocks the ball out of the air as it arrives.

With Fenton healthy again, the Chiefs have enough bodies at cornerback to allow Fuller to continue to play all over the field. This should help Spagnuolo compensate for Thornhill’s absence by making it impossible for quarterbacks to gauge the defense before the snap.


Armani Watts’ filling in

Watts is going to see his role increase in a big way if Spagnuolo wants to continue to use safeties as much as he does. On Sunday, he showed some of the traits that made him an appealing prospect.



(You can find the full snap of Watts in coverage here)



Here, Watts is asked to patrol the deep third of the field but is also supposed to keep an eye on the action in front of him. Linebacker Anthony Hitchens is in a shallow zone, and the Chargers send a receiver across the middle of the field into a space that’s wide open given the extra heat Spagnuolo sends after Rivers. Watts correctly anticipates that the receiver is going to move away from Hitchens and is already starting to break towards the route.

Watts takes a proper angle here, aiming for where the route will take the receiver rather than directly to the receiver. He has excellent closing speed and arrives with authority, stopping the receiver in his tracks. A “lowering the helmet” penalty was called here, which was odd considering the receiver lowered his helmet into Watts just as much as the other way around. However, this play demonstrates what Watts can do best: close quickly downhill and hit hard.

Watts also made a few tough plays against the run Sunday. He made a stop on 4th and 1 that was incorrectly ruled a first down for the Chargers in which he again got to the ball carrier fast and finished strong. However, his biggest play of the game went unnoticed by most.


(The entire video of the play being discussed can be found here)



With less than 2 minutes left in the 3rd quarter, the Chargers faced 3rd and 17 from the Chiefs’ 20-yard-line. With Kansas City leading 24-14, this was a chance for Los Angeles to make it a competitive game again. They dialed up a well-designed screen to the left side the put a couple of blockers out front and forced Frank Clark and Terrell Suggs into pursuit roles. Compounding the issue for Kansas City, Niemann lost his balance and Chargers running back Melvin Gordon found himself with a pair of blockers against Watts and Ward in space.

Watts doesn’t try to take on the blocker directly, which would be a waste of time. He also doesn’t try to dance around the block, knowing that would likely remove him from the play. Instead, he twists around the blocker and makes a diving attempt at Gordon through the contact. He’s not able to get a big hit, but because Gordon was already recovering his balance it causes Gordon to start stumbling. In the meantime Ward has avoided his blocker in space.

Gordon is still stumbling when Ward hits him, but is still able to wrestle his way forward another few yards before the tackle is finished (with an assist from Fuller, who arrives a moment later). The Chargers end up gaining 16 yards on the play, a yard short of the first down. The next play defensive tackles Mike Pennel and Chris Jones stuff a 4th and short attempt, and the Chiefs get the ball back without surrendering their 2-score lead.

Had Watts not made a heads-up play to cause Gordon to stumble, he would have been running full speed when he met Ward and likely would have been able to gain the first down. Los Angeles would then have had a good chance to score and make it a single possession game. These sort of plays don’t often go noticed, but they change the outcome of games.

Watts doesn’t have Thornhill’s range on the back end, but his ability to close and finish plays should be an asset for the Chiefs and he did demonstrate a knack for being around the ball in college. If he can build on a strong first performance (in which he wasn’t asked to do too much) the Chiefs can stay afloat despite Thornhill’s absence.

Patrick Mahomes was boring except when necessary

It’s odd to call a performance by Mahomes boring, but overall the reigning MVP stayed conservative with the ball and was content to dink and dunk against the Chargers. Los Angeles is able to give Kansas City’s offense problems by having one of the few defenders in the league capable of dealing with tight end Travis Kelce in safety Derwin James. That often seems to affect Mahomes’ performances against them.



(Note: not all throws can be charted for depth of target and/or accuracy, so the numbers look wonky. You can find a primer on what the numbers charted mean and how they break down quarterback play here)



It’s worth noting that Mahomes did throw a pair of interceptions that did not count. However, on both of those plays he had an offsides penalty ready to render any bad result moot, so I didn’t count those throws against him. One of the potential picks I did count was more on Kelce than Mahomes, as Kelce stopped running his route and didn’t except the ball to come his way.

Overall, Mahomes played a “paint by numbers” game against the Chargers, which is demonstrated by how few “multiple-read” throws he made. Quite often, Mahomes saw the easy gain on his first read and took it. The Chiefs may have been playing a vanilla game plan with the playoffs in mind, as they didn’t show off many of their motions and more complicated route combinations Sunday. However, it’s impossible to know if that was with the playoffs in mind or a game plan specific to the Chargers.

A few things stood out in Mahomes’ performance despite the relatively boring nature of it. First, he was once again willing to stay in the pocket and move around within the structure of his blocking. This is good news, as it marks the third straight game (and against the second straight solid defense) Mahomes has shown his happy-feet issues are well behind him. The second issue is that when the Chiefs desperately needed yards/points, Mahomes was still willing to sling it down the field.

The best example of this came in the second quarter with the Chiefs trailing and in need of some points. First Mahomes dialed up a deep strike to receiver Mecole Hardman, who continues to make big plays. The very next play, Mahomes found receiver Demarcus Robinson down the field for a touchdown, giving the Chiefs a lead they would not relinquish.

The route combination here is exceptional, forcing the deep safety to make a tough choice. However, there are a couple of things Mahomes does here that make this play work. The first is that Mahomes stared down receive Tyreek Hill going across the field for most of the play, forcing the safety to move with him.

Mahomes waits to look at Robinson until the safety is too far to recover. Then he gets rid of the ball quickly. This screenshot is right as Mahomes starts his throwing motion. Notice that Robinson hasn’t completed his third cut (which brings him back inside). By throwing the ball well before Robinson comes open, Mahomes ensures that no defender will be able to make a play on it.

The Chiefs’ offense, even on its most boring day, has the ability to score at a moment’s notice. That’s a huge part of what makes them a team no one wants to face in the playoffs.



The run defense continues to develop


The Chiefs’ run defense forced the Chargers to change their game plan after the first quarter.

That statement may sound ludicrous, but it’s absolutely true. The Chargers attempted to pound the football up the middle early on, running the ball between the tackles five times as they attempted to take advantage of Kansas City’s supposed weakness up the middle. The problem for them is that those five runs netted a mere 13 yards, or 2.6 yards per carry, and 10 of those yards came on a 3rd-and-20 draw play in which the Chiefs welcomed the run up the middle. So the numbers on carries where it actually mattered were 4 carries for 3 yards.

Defensive tackles Derrick Nnadi, Chris Jones, Mike Pennel and Khalen Saunders have quietly emerged as a group that is solid against the run. The addition of Pennel and Saunders’ development has given the Chiefs multiple big, strong bodies to throw at interior offensive lines, and teams just aren’t able to generate movement at the point of attack like they once were. Additionally, Spagnuolo has taken advantage of Jones’ ability to penetrate against the run by having him often attack gaps rather than trying to control them.

The Chiefs are still ranked quite low in run defense efficiency (28th in the league), but as of late, teams that wanted to “establish the run” — not a term I favor, but that discussion can be for another day — have found themselves unable to do so. It’s one more piece that appears to be falling into place at the right time, though the real test will be against teams such as the Titans or the Ravens in the playoffs. As things stand, the Chiefs look as ready to contend as they’ve been in my many years analyzing them.

[T-post Tom]

Wbf

fer real

[Pitt Gorilla]

Thornhill's speed will definitely be missed. Even if he initially made a bad read, his tremendous speed helped him erase that mistake. Plus his speed made it easier to disguise coverages because he could match up with a receiver just like HB.

His speed and versatility were probably the main reasons why Fuller started being flexed to safety so much.

I think that Spags has earned the benefit of the doubt, and he will make whatever adjustments needed to make up for the different skills of the replacements, but the play of Thornhill was a major reason why the defense had started to have so much success, and his absence will probably lead to some big plays by opposing offenses.

Sent from my GM1915 using TapatalkThinking about the situation this morning, I'm even more worried. Thornhill allowed HB to do almost anything that Spags could dream up on his notepad. The other guys haven't shown that ability in the single-high (or really any other configuration). I hope I'm wrong and Thornhill's absence doesn't have a domino effect on the defense.