Who is the Chiefs' Most Underrated Player?
Who is the most underrated member of the Kansas City Chiefs? Sports Illustrated's Conor Orr highlights a member of the Chiefs' defense.
Chiefs
Juan Thornhill, S
Tyrann Mathieu is obviously the heart and soul of this Chiefs defense, but Thornhill can lay claim to some other essential organ. His rookie season produced three picks, an opposing completion percentage below 50, significant snaps at free safety, box safety and slot cornerback, and five pass breakups. In Steve Spagnuolo’s defense, safeties have to be cerebral and versatile, and Thornhill fits the bill.
From a national perspective, this is a pretty good pick. However, within Kansas City, I think most Chiefs fans appreciate how excellent Thornhill was in his rookie season, before his season-ending injury that kept him out of the playoff run.
For Chiefs fans, I would have gone with left tackle Eric Fisher. The former number one overall pick has spent his entire career under the shadow of that method of which he entered the league. Even when blocking for Alex Smith in the second-best era of modern Chiefs football, Fisher got less credit and more critique than he typically deserved. In the Patrick Mahomes era, the interior offensive line has clearly been the weak link on the OL, but the excellence of right tackle Mitchell Schwartz leaves Fisher in an easy-to-ignore middle ground among Chiefs linemen. Fisher has been a very good left tackle and deserves a larger share of the o-line's credit in recent years.
Who do you think is the Chiefs' most underrated player? Leave your pick in the comments below.
For Orr's breakdown of the most underrated players on every team in the AFC, click here.
