Things often change very quickly in the NFL. For safety Juan Thornhill, the veteran went from playing a starter-level amount of snaps to not playing at all with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Then, on Monday, the team released him to claim an undrafted rookie free agent off waivers.
Head coach Mike Tomlin offered an explanation to reporters Tuesday regarding the logic behind that decision. “You know, the play wasn’t up to snuff. [Sebastian] Castro was available to us. We went through the team development process with Castro,” Tomlin told the media. “We thought he had a good camp, good preseason. He played his tail off in that practice against the Bucs. I think that’s why they stole him from us. We had an opportunity to reacquire him. We’ve absorbed some attrition since he left, so it was an opportunity to get him back.
“It’s more about Castro and less about Juan.”
The end result, though, is the Steelers released a two-time Super Bowl champion safety in his seventh NFL season. In exchange, the team added safety Sebastian Castro, who has never played a defensive snap in the league.
Steelers Released Juan Thornhill to Claim Sebastian Castro
Tomlin tried to backtrack a little with his initial comment, concluding that the safety move the team made Monday was more about Castro. And at 25 years old, the rookie—although undrafted—probably does have more future upside than Thornhill.
However, most pundits focused on Tomlin’s initial response about Thornhill’s play not being “up to snuff.” The Sporting News’ Mike Moraitis referred to Tomlin’s answer on the veteran safety’s play as “brutally honest.” Fansided’s Nick Halden called the response “a rather damaging sentiment.”
According to the grades at Pro Football Focus (PFF), Tomlin’s assessment wasn’t wrong. The PFF player grades have Thornhill rated as the second-worst defender who has played a snap for the Steelers this season. Thornhill posted a 35.9 grade in coverage (out of 100) and a 36.9 overall player grade with Pittsburgh.
Some pundits have argued that PFF’s grading system can be flawed. But even if those grades are a little too harsh for Thornhill, the PFF system doesn’t miss that badly. Clearly, Thornhill didn’t play particularly well for the Steelers.
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