Tyquan Thornton — Week 2: Third and Eleven, Forty-Five Yards

20 to 17, Colts, 10 38 left in the third quarter, third and 11 at the Indianapolis 46. Patrick Mahomes threw deep right to Tyquan Thornton, 45 yards in the air, and Thornton was down at the one. +5.1 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — the most valuable pass or run of the game by either team, and 22.2 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it. Four snaps later, after three stuffed runs, Mahomes threw the go-ahead touchdown on fourth and goal.

Then he did it again. 27 all, eight 38 left in overtime, third and 12 at the Kansas City 30, one snap after a sack: deep right, 29 in the air, 30 yards to the Indianapolis 40. +3.3 expected points and 20.5 points of win probability. That drive ended in the field goal that put Kansas City ahead.

The line: four targets, four catches, 86 yards, no touchdown, two first downs, +8.2 expected points on the targets, the most of any Chiefs receiver, a figure Josh Downs of the Colts matched to a hundredth of a point on nine targets. 85 air yards on the four catches and one yard after the catch. The other two: six yards short right on first and 10 at the Indianapolis 43 with six 31 left in the second quarter, and five yards short middle on third and six at the Kansas City 47 early in the third, a yard short with the spot assisted by replay; Kansas City converted the fourth and one. Three third-down targets, three catches, two conversions, and the two conversions were third and 11 and third and 12. One target before halftime, three after.

Four targets were fifth on the Chiefs, behind Travis Kelce's 11, Kenneth Walker's 10, Xavier Worthy's seven and Rashee Rice's six, on 43 credited targets.

Back in June the preview leaned watchlist on Thornton — the 90-ninth receiver off the board, a real per-game beat on thin volume, with last season's 23 yards a catch as the part that regresses and Rice's return crowding the room — and named the target pecking order once Rice was back among the things to watch. Week 1 was one target, a deep ball, incomplete, behind Worthy, Walker, Kelce, Rice and Emmett Johnson. Sunday night the order barely moved: he was still behind the same four. What changed is that the deep balls landed, at 21 and a half yards a catch. That is the role exactly as the preview described it, thin volume and long completions, and also the part it said to distrust. Two games, one of each kind. The Chiefs are at the Dolphins on Sunday the 20-seventh.

_Data via nflverse._