With Damontae Kazee’s contract expiring, the Pittsburgh Steelers were in need of a veteran safety to protect against injury as well as help in subpackage football. They went out and signed former Kansas City Chief and Cleveland Brown S Juan Thornhill.

Thornhill won two Super Bowls with the Kansas City Chiefs early on in his career and was a fairly pricey free-agent signing for the Browns at three years, $21 million prior to the 2023 season.

After missing only one game through the first four seasons of his career, Thornhill missed 12 combined games over the past two years with the Browns. All of his injury issues have involved his calves, so that will be something to keep an eye on. The Steelers haven’t had luck with soft-tissue injuries the past few seasons.

With the Chiefs, Thornhill played much more of a hybrid role with the majority of his snaps at free safety, but still a healthy amount of reps in the slot and in the box. The Browns used him in much more of a pure free safety role with some sparse slot and box snaps mixed in.

Thornhill entered the league at 6002, 205 pounds with a 4.42-second 40-yard dash at the 2019 NFL Scouting Combine. He ended up getting picked in the second round of the 2019 draft.

With all of that foundation laid, let’s dive into his 2024 tape.

He does a nice job coming downhill and tackling the catch. His tackling fundamentals are strong and he attacks the football while wrapping up and securing the tackle. On this play, he timed his hit well and managed to jar the ball loose for an incompletion.

This is an underrated ability for defensive backs, but a necessary one in today’s game. He is good at the split-second decision and making clean, legal tackles to avoid big penalties. Kazee had an ugly hit or two that tacked on extra yards and Thornhill repeatedly showed good decision making. He could have delivered a knockout punch here over the middle, but he showed a perfect form tackle.

Don’t get the wrong idea about his clean play. He can and absolutely will lay big hits over the middle. The few I was able to find were well-timed and well-placed hits to avoid penalties. He even managed to break up the pass on this play.

His open-field tackling is stellar. He has a solid understanding of when he needs to go all out to make the tackle or when he can break his feet down to make sure he doesn’t miss. On this play, he broke his feet down, wrapped up and made the play.

It’s also impressive to be able to bring down a tight end with no help in the open field. He managed to wrap up and drag Pat Freiermuth down. If he wasn’t able to, Freiermuth may have taken this one another 20 yards.

When Thornhill acquires his target, his closing speed is very solid. On this play, he ran all the way from the hash at safety to the flat to clip Jaylen Warren’s feet. It was a nice job by Warren to stay upright, but Thornhill’s closing speed was evident.

As you probably guessed from many of the clips above, he has no problem coming downhill to defend against the run. He took a great angle on this play, ran all the way across the field and landed a perfect form tackle on Warren. Mind you, Warren is not easy to bring down on first contact.

Shortly after Thornhill’s signing, I saw this clip circulating on social media. It was a little disappointing because Thornhill never really broke into a sprint and it looked like he gave up early on the play.

I went into his tape specifically looking to see if he lacked effort or if he quit on plays before the whistle. I am pleased to say that I didn’t really see that as an issue very much in the five games I watched. Here is an example of Thornhill running all the way across the field to tackle Justin Fields. Fields is very fast and appeared to have the angle running up the sideline, but Thornhill managed to cut him off.

The only time I really saw him struggle to tackle was against Lamar Jackson. He had four missed tackles in Week 18 against the Ravens which was his most of the 2024 season. Jackson makes a lot of players look silly like this and often you have to guess and get lucky to bring Jackson down in the open field. I don’t really fault him here.

How about his coverage? His change of direction isn’t elite, but he is fairly sticky in coverage when playing from the slot. He did a very good job here against Isaiah Likely on a wheel route.

He can also play closer to the line of scrimmage in press coverage. On this play, he jammed the receiver at the line of scrimmage with his punch and mirrored his movements well. Once the receiver stopped his route, Thornhill shifted his eyes back to the quarterback and showed solid awareness to play against the scramble and make the tackle.

Overall, Thornhill should be a nice chess piece to introduce into the secondary. DeShon Elliott was the primary big nickel last year with Damontae Kazee stepping in as the second safety in those packages. They should be able to mix things up and play to matchups this year with Thornhill having a similar skill set to Elliott.

As long as Thornhill can stay healthy, he could become a fan favorite like Elliott was last year with physicality and sure tackling at the foundation of his game.