Safety Juan Thornhill knows his way around the NFL. Having won two Super Bowls with Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid, and the Kansas City Chiefs, he’s now off to a new challenge. However, the safety might have underestimated an added layer in playing for Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Steelers are all about their defense. It’s always been the root of their pride. The ‘Steel Curtain’ days made sure to set the bar at an almost unreachable height. Now, Thornhill along with Jalen Ramsey, T.J. Watt, Cameron Heyward, and others are looking to follow the steps of those who came before them.
However, that was never going to be an easy climb. As the former Chiefs safety has come to learn, when playing for Mahomes and Reid in Kansas City, there was something the defensive unit didn’t have to account for—at least, not as much as in the stadium on the shore of the Ohio River in Pittsburgh.
“When you play at Acrisure, you can’t hear anything,” Thornhill admitted in dialogue with The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Ray Fittipaldo. “The fans are crazy loud.”
Juan Thornhill prior to Super Bowl LVII on February 07, 2023 in Scottsdale, Arizona.
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Luckily for Thornhill and the Steelers’ defensive unit, there is always a way around a problem As the 29-year-old defensive back commented, it’s all about building chemistry with each other to know where everyone should be on the field. When that doesn’t work, they can always fall back on good old sign language.
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“We have to get to the point where there is more nonverbal communication,” Thornhill concluded. “We have to make sure we’re on the same page so we’re not making the same mistakes over and over again. We have to get to the point where we don’t have to verbally communicate and start signaling a little more. Once we do that, get the call quick, we have a lot of guys who can play a lot better.”
At the end of the day, it’s not like Thornhill isn’t used to loud atmospheres. He did play four seasons with Mahomes and the Chiefs taking the field at Arrowhead, one of the buzziest environments across the league.
Terribly loud
The Steelers’ defense will have to take a big step if the team is serious about contending. So far, they’ve allowed over 30 points in both outings of the 2025 NFL season—once at home and once on the road—so it’s clearly not about the fans being too loud. Even if it were, the players should know better than to expect them to sit idle while clutching their Terrible Towels.
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At this point, maintaining Tomlin’s streak of winning seasons is not enough. Pittsburgh demands championships. A quick glance around the City of Bridges shows the Steelers are the city’s biggest hope to mend that bridge and bring silverware back to the Burgh.
