Rashad Fenton and Juan Thornhill film review: looking at every snap of the "new" guys

Charting every coverage snap by Fenton and examining how Thornhill impacted the defense

Sometimes, things just go exactly how you hoped, at least in the short term.

That’s exactly what happened for me (and many Chiefs fans) on Sunday, as defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo made several changes to the personnel seeing the bulk of the playing time in the secondary. Juan Thornhill, the 3rd year safety who people have been clamoring for to see increased snaps, and Rashad Fenton, a 3rd year cornerback who has been consistently competent since his rookie year but was lagging behind in snap count, both saw 100% of the snaps.

Those two replacing Dan Sorensen and Mike Hughes in terms of snap count frequency were two of the four changes I wrote should be made last week when discussing the cracks in the Chiefs’ defensive foundation. I must admit I was somewhat surprised that those changes were made, and I braced myself for disappointment (a common feeling with the defense this season).

Instead, the defense had by far its strongest performance of the season, albeit against a Washington Football Team that has a relatively anemic offense. However, there at least appeared to be a noticeable improvement in the secondary. And so to the film we go to see how Thornhill/Fenton performed on every snap.

If you’ve never read a cornerback review from me, I chart each snap in coverage for success, failure, and neutral snaps. A neutral snap would be a zone coverage in which not much was required from the defender (which happens more often than people realize) or something else that doesn’t properly qualify as a success or a failure. I also chart targets, catches/yards given up, and passes defensed.

For safeties, it’s a little more complicated considering the nature of their assignments. With Thornhill, I want to have a conversation about his impact on the defense overall, the roles other defenders are asked to play, and how his skillset was influential on plays both directly and indirectly.

Let’s start with Fenton’s snaps and then we’ll talk about Thornhill. Both of them played quite well, and there’s some room to be excited for these changes being (hopefully) permanent.