The Minnesota Vikings are in a crucial season. After three years of fixing the roster's salary cap issues, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah spent like crazy this March to (hopefully) fix the trenches for good.
It wasn't just about this offseason, as Adofo-Mensah has been making moves across the entirety of his tenure to get the Vikings ready to compete for a Super Bowl. The biggest of those was quarterback J.J. McCarthy. If McCarthy hits, the Vikings will have their first franchise quarterback since peak Daunte Culpepper in the early 2000s.
However, it's the other player that Adofo-Mensah selected in the first round of last year's NFL Draft that has brought the most controversy.
Setting the record straight on Dallas Turner
When the Vikings selected Turner, it was viewed as a coup. Now, it was an expensive coup to get the ninth-ranked player on the consensus board by trading up to 17th overall. Despite the excitement about Turner, he's already being prematurely called a bust after just one season.
It's a narrative that neither makes much sense and is extremely frustrating. That being said, it's all over social media and a common opinion among the fanbase.
It's obvious that, despite a rookie season that wasn't as good as you would have wanted, Turner isn't a bust. Let's break down what's really going on with Turner.
The first thing people point to is how few snaps Turner played. Across all 18 games the Vikings played, Turner played in just 310 of a possible 1,188 snaps. For context, Jihad Ward (505) and Pat Jones II (459) both outsnapped Turner, and that's a major talking point for his detractors. The reality is that Turner wasn't going to play ahead of either guy in those packages, as they were playing a role on the defense that Turner either couldn't play (0T/1T), or his body wasn't ready for it yet as a 21 year old rookie (crashing on stunts).
The other aspect for why Turner didn't play was the performance of both Andrew Van Ginkel and Jonathan Greenard. They played 973 and 969 snaps, respectively, and the former was a second-team All-Pro with the latter nearly earning the same honors. The Vikings weren't going to take out either guy when they played at such a high level last season, and there is nothing wrong with that.
In those 310 snaps, there wasn't much consistency for Turner, including seven games where he had less than 15 snaps. What he did show was two things:
- Growth
- Flashes of greatness
His ghost move against the Chicago Bears was one of the best highlights from the Vikings' defense this past year.
Turner only rushed the passer 151 times with just 12 pressures. He did have a great pressure to sack rate of 25%, as he notched 3.0 sacks, but there isn't a large sample size to go off of. This is why the flashes are important to understand, especially since they get better as the season goes on.
The above clip was from a Monday night game in December, but they started early on.
One of the main reasons why the Vikings took Turner over Jared Verse and Chop Robinson was his ability to drop into coverage. Defensive coordinator Brian Flores loves to have players who can do a little bit of everything, giving him the ability to maximize confusion for the opposing quarterback.
Against the San Francisco 49ers in week two, Turner dropped into coverage, something he did just 55 times and was flawless. Look at how well he moves on the second level, keeping his eyes up and making a play on the football.
He continued that over the course of the season, including earning an interception against the Seattle Seahawks in week 16.
The one thread that links all those plays together is simple: Turner moves differently than other players at his position. It's a special kind of movement that only an elite athlete can possess. His explosiveness metrics were at an elite level coming out of Alabama.
All of this is the long, detailed way to say that Turner still has a ton of potential and we can't make any certain conclusion. There will be some who don't believe he can maximize his potential or continue to think he's a bust based solely upon playing just 310 snaps. Those people are wrong.
Sure, Turner may not live up to his potential, but we can say that about every player who has one season under their belt. However, Turner is primed to take things to the next level this season, especially with a season under his belt both on and off the field.
Having a full season in Flores' defense and an NFL strength and conditioning program will do more for Turner than his 310 snaps did, but they will all make a major impact on his growth this season.
