Chiefs have followed a plan to ease Juan Thornhill back. He’s ready for more
Two months into rehabbing from a torn ligament in his knee, the most serious injury of his football career, Chiefs safety Juan Thornhill vowed to be back for the opening weekend of the 2020 season. And he was.
For the most part.
Not completely just yet.
Thornhill returned in time for the Chiefs’ season-opening 34-20 win against the Texans Thursday, but he’s on the equivalent of a snap count as they gradually ramp him up from a surgery that often costs NFL players 11 months.
“We watched him, and he actually came out feeling good, which was what we wanted,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “We were cautious with him.”
As the Chiefs increased Thornhill’s workload in training camp, he remarked that he planned to return stronger than before.
Give it time.
Thornhill suffered the injury on Dec. 29, Chiefs’ the season finale against the Chargers, ending a rookie season in which he had blossomed into a playmaking safety for the defense. Less than nine months later, was on the field in a competitive football game, a timeline that beats the majority of his counterparts.
The average NFL player from 2009-15 missed 11 months with the same ailment, a 2018 study in the Journal of Arthroscopic and Related Surgery showed.
Thornhill has remarked that he feels 100%, and he’s simply following the team’s medical staff’s orders on his progression. He played 38 of the Chiefs’ 59 defensive snaps in Week 1.
He made the stat sheet just once Thursday — a second-quarter tackle — but he played a part in weakening the Texans’ passing attack. Houston quarterback Deshaun Watson managed only 253 yards passing in the game, and 134 of those came in the fourth quarter, after the outcome had essentially been determined. Through three quarters, Watson did not have a completion stretch more than 20 yards.
And that’s where Thornhill resides — in the deepest part of the secondary.
His residency there figures to increase as the season progresses, Reid said, particularly after he reported no ill-symptoms from his first competitive NFL game since the knee injury.
“He wanted to play more, to his credit,” Reid said. “But it all worked out well, in particular the day after, which was important for us and for him, most of all.”
Thornhill played at least 83% of the Chiefs’ defensive snaps in every game last season, his rookie year, until the injury occurred in the final week. Five times, he didn’t leave the field for a single defensive play. He had multiple tackles in every game. Intercepted three passes. Broke up five others.
He’ll get back to that playmaking ability and consistent time on the field, he says, a positive outlook he credits to teammate Tyrann Mathieu, who has suffered torn ACL injuries in both knees — the left in 2013 and the right in 2015.
Mathieu was the lone Chiefs player to see every defensive snap in Thursday’s opener. Safeties Daniel Sorensen and newcomer Tedric Thompson ate up the extra playing time vacated by Thornhill’s pitch count, so to speak.
Biding time until Thornhill’s return is fully complete.
This story was originally published September 15, 2020 at 12:56 PM.