**Player: S Juan Thornhill**
**Stock Value: Purchased**
**Reasoning:** _An evident replacement for Damontae Kazee, Juan Thornhill signed a one-year contract with the Steelers. He figures to step into the third safety role and feature in some defensive sub-packages. Already familiar with AFC North play, Thornhill has considerable defensive experience. He does not, however, have much special teams experience, so unless the Steelers intend to change that, he is here to serve as a defensive insurance policy._
For the past three seasons, the Steelers have had Damontae Kazee as depth at safety. This offseason, rather than re-signing him again, they have signed Juan Thornhill instead. Released by the Browns, they added him as a street free agent, thus not affecting their compensatory formula. Signing a one-year deal worth $3 million, he might not have affected the formula anyway.
This isn’t about the Steelers’ compensatory picks, though; it’s about Thornhill and his role for them. With just 232 special teams snaps over six years, it’s unlikely they are viewing him as a contributor there. Instead, their interest is in his 4,663 career defensive snaps.
Thornhill has 52 career starts in his 65 games played, so his brings considerable experience to the Steelers’ secondary. They already have their starting safeties in Minkah Fitzpatrick and DeShon Elliott, of course, but depth was running thin. Miles Killebrew is a Pro Bowl special teamer, but they prefer to keep him to that task.
Now, there is a reason Thornhill signed with a team like the Steelers who already has established starters. Like Kazee before him, he is at that stage of his career where he is transitioning into a background role. With a $3 million contract, they obviously view him as more than a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency figure, but how they use him will remain to be seen.
_With the new league year underway and the Steelers turning their roster over, it’s once again time to “take stock”. It took a while, but we finally saw some of that_ [_change the team talked about_](https://steelersdepot.com/2025/02/steelers-make-their-coaching-changes-they-still-manage-to-disappoint/) _after the season ended. Certainly, the move to trade for WR DK Metcalf qualifies as a change, not to mention the accompanying contract._
_There is still a long way to go before we know what this Steelers team is going to look like. Once the dust settles on free agency, we turn our attention_ [_to the draft_](https://www.nfl.com/draft/)_, and so on. What other moves might the team make, perhaps unexpected acquisitions or departures? If they traded for one player, they could certainly trade for another, or trade one away. This is a Steelers team starving for postseason success, but how desperate are they for a playoff win in 2025?_