The Chiefs once paid $30 million for this feature. Now, they pay $1.1 million
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Chiefs replaced a $30M deep threat with $1.1M Tyquan Thornton, who delivers.
- Thornton leads NFL in deep targets with 11 and creates consistent separation.
- Mahomes now throws downfield more often, aided by Thornton’s contested grabs.
Tyquan Thornton is facing the sideline when the football is in flight. The precursor to his game-sealing catch Sunday night in New Jersey became appropriately lost in a pretty compelling tale, but his final three steps before a body-contorting catch are all backpedals, spinning nearly 180 degrees to make the grab.
About 90 minutes earlier in the game, Thornton sprinted down the center of the field on a post route, basically all by his lonesome. The pass came late and short, allowing a defender to break it up. It’s a play that didn’t crack the highlights, but it’s the play Patrick Mahomes says he’d like to have back, because Thornton had a touchdown if only Mahomes saw it and ripped it.
I could roll through nine more of these, enough examples of Thornton being targeted downfield to fill a column, because the purpose is more than the success.
It’s also the attempts.
It’s why the attempts were made.
Nobody has been on the other end of more deep throws than Thornton, who has been targeted on 11 passes traveling at least 20 yards downfield, per PFF data. Think of that statement before the year, knowing how the previous two seasons had unfolded: The most targeted deep-threat receiver in the NFL is on the Chiefs roster. A year ago, they did not have a player who ranked in the top 30.
Sure, the Chiefs emphasized the heck out of it during the offseason, from the onset of summer workouts through the training camp heat in St. Joseph. At one point, Mahomes asked his teammates and coaches to make sure he was throwing the ball long as much as he said he would.
It was all the rage. You know, same as the year before.
But while the focus on a willing quarterback and an adaptable offensive scheme holds merit, it has overlooked a critical piece of the deep-pass equation. And it’s the piece that isn’t the same as a year ago: the player on the other end of the throw.
A few years ago, the Chiefs gave Marquez Valdes-Scantling a three-year, $30 million contract to be the guy on the other end. He ran plenty of deep routes. The Chiefs emphasized it plenty then, too. And he caught all of three deep shots in his final year with the Chiefs. (He was cut after two years and $18 million.)
Thornton has three catches downfield in three weeks.
His price: $1.1 million.
That’s the aforementioned compelling part of it. The Patriots dumped Thornton. A 4-13 team decided it was better without him, and a Super Bowl contender picked him up and found the value — and they’re paying the NFL’s version of pennies for it. He’s been an ideal fit for a vacancy left outstanding in the Chiefs’ offense since they traded Tyreek Hill to Miami in 2022.
But there’s another compelling part: how he’s producing in the deep passing game.
• I went back and rewatched the 11 downfield targets to Thornton, and I count nine of them in which he gave his quarterback a reasonable chance for a completion. That doesn’t mean nine of them should have been completed — these aren’t checkdowns 5 yards away, after all — but he’s prying himself open.
Consistently.
And that’s a pretty good place to start, no?
He was open on the second example I mentioned atop this column — the throw against the Giants that Mahomes regrets.
“I knew when Tyquan won, the back-side (safety) had gotten held (up) by the route that we had,” Mahomes said. “So I could probably put that ball out farther. I threw it more across the field. But with the leverage that the corner had, I wish I would’ve thrown it father and just let Tyquan run underneath it
“Probably a touchdown if I do that.”
The key phrase there: when Tyquan won.
• Thornton isn’t just running wind sprints up and down the field. The diversity of his downfield routes pops.
He’s already caught two downfield corner routes for 71 yards. No wide receiver had more than 44 yards on corner routes for the Chiefs last season, per SIS data.
Thornton has compiled 5.76 expected points added (EPA) on those routes, which is more than any Chiefs receiver in 17 games in 2024, per SIS.
• They haven’t all been easy catches. You know that. The 33-yard grab against the Giants is one of the most difficult catches a Chiefs receiver has made in almost a year.
It’s not his first.
Thornton has two contested catches on deep throws this season, per PFF, which doesn’t seem all that notable until you consider this:
The entire Chiefs team had three contested catches on deep throws in 2024. Again, one player has totaled two in three weeks. The defenses against the Chiefs had more interceptions (four) last season than Chiefs receivers came down with contested catches downfield.
It’s no wonder Mahomes became gun-shy a year ago. Statistically, he was the NFL’s most risk-adverse quarterback.
Which returns the quarterback to the equation. It’s not that he connected with Thornton — it’s that he had the guts to even throw it.
I’ve mentioned that Thornton has been able to find some openings downfield, but that catch against the Giants? It wasn’t one of them. Mahomes threw it anyway. He even called for the play, he told me, and never looked elsewhere after the snap.
He’s looked downfield for years.
He’s throwing downfield at a higher rate. There can be a lot of things that play into that, but this much is obvious:
There’s a new target waiting.