Kansas City Chiefs’ Juan Thornhill gives update on knee health ahead of Super Bowl LV
Juan Thornhill is ready to clear all doubts.
The Kansas City Chiefs safety — recovering all season from a torn ACL he suffered last year — played 56 snaps in the AFC Championship Game, which was his most since Week 9.
So ... is Thornhill fully healthy?
“I can definitely say I’m back to 100%,” Thornhill said during a Super Bowl media session Tuesday. “I’m really confident in myself. I feel like I’m back to where I was last year, and I’m ready to go.”
Thornhill is the first to admit that many of the obstacles with his injury regarded the mental side of things.
Earlier in the season, he battled some pain in his knee while trying to work through that — “And I don’t think that was the right mentality,” he said. Thornhill tried to tell himself then that the Chiefs coaching staff wasn’t expecting him to play as well, but he still felt like he was performing below his own standards.
It was just the start of an up-and-down season. Chiefs coach Andy Reid described Thornhill as a “situational guy right now” when he had only 11 snaps in a late-November win over the Raiders, and Thornhill later said in interviews that the coaches spoke to him about limiting his workload late in an effort to aid his recovery.
“It’s not really more about the physical capability. It’s more about my mind,” Thornhill said Tuesday. “I feel like my mind was the one that was holding me back. And once we hit the playoffs, I made up my mind, just like, ‘Listen, you have a couple more games. Go as hard as you can, and everything will fall into place.’”
Thornhill’s usage increased in the Chiefs’ 38-24 win over the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship, as defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo primarily utilized a four-safety look.
“Last game, I had a different mindset, like, ’If the ball comes to you Juan, you go make the play,’” Thornhill said. “It’s just me talking to myself, which lifts me up.”
Thornhill, based on his history, might be looking forward to Sunday more than any other Chief.
Because of his injury, he was only able to attend last year’s Super Bowl as a spectator, coming down to the front row before the game to greet his teammates.
Thornhill said he tried to keep a positive mindset throughout that day, but a different emotion overwhelmed him once the Chiefs ran out of the tunnel.
“It just like really hit me, just thinking like, ‘I’m sitting here in the stands. I can be literally two to three feet down, being on that field right now, if this injury wouldn’t have happened,’” Thornhill said. “And when I say I shut down ... I literally just went back to my seat and didn’t talk the rest of the game. I was really in my feelings, just really wishing I was out there with my teammates.”
Thornhill says he remembers watching previous Super Bowls growing up with his parents and grandparents. To experience playing in it, he said, would be a “childhood dream.”
“This whole offseason, in my mind, I was just thinking that we were going to get back to the Super Bowl. Like, there was no other option,” Thornhill said. “So it definitely means a whole lot for me, just being able to actually step out there and play.”
While healthy, no less.
“I just changed my mentality. And once I changed that, I feel like I could take off after that,” Thornhill said. “Because once you change your mind, everything follows.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 11:21 AM.
