Has Dallas Turned the Corner?

Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images

There hasn’t been much to be happy about during the Minnesota Vikings’ four-game losing streak, but one of the silver linings has been second-year edge rusher Dallas Turner. Turner has turned in an impressive statline over the last three games, with 12 total pressures, including 4 sacks and 3 QB hits, 2 pass deflections, and 15 total tackles.

Turner now leads the team with 5.5 sacks on the season, which might feel low if not for the fact that the Vikings are 12th in the NFL in sacks, with 31 — they’ve just really spread around who is actually generating the sacks.

The Vikings took the Alabama alum with the 17th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. The pick immediately invited criticism, not because of Turner’s evaluation as a prospect, but rather because of the draft capital the Vikings spent to move up and get him. Prior to the draft, the Vikings had sent the 42nd and 188th picks, as well as their 2025 2nd-round pick, to the Texans for the 23rd and 232nd picks.

It was understandable for the Vikings to move up pre-draft as they looked to put together a package that would potentially allow them to trade up for a QB, but they did not make a major move up the board and instead picked JJ McCarthy on draft night.

They then turned around and packaged the 23rd and 167th picks, along with their 2025 3rd- and 4th-round picks, to move up to the 17th pick to select Turner. Adding the costs together, that’s two 2nd round picks plus 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th round picks for Turner and a 7th round pick. For the analytics-inclined, trading up that much for a single non-QB is a mortal sin.

Truly one of the trades of all time

That backdrop has contributed significantly to consternation throughout Turner’s young career. Turner failed to produce immediately, with just 3 sacks in 300 snaps his rookie year, and just an additional 1.5 sacks through the Vikings’ first 9 games this year.

It’s certainly fair to question the value of the trade up, or to lament the lost opportunity to draft Rams edge rusher Jared Verse, picked just two spots later, and question the Vikings’ process in drafting Turner.

There are mitigating factors to Turner’s lack of production, of course, like the fact that Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel played ahead of him in 2024, and both earned Pro Bowl recognition and All-Pro votes. Turner (22) is also significantly younger than Verse (25).

Really, it’s unfair to relitigate a draft that hasn’t even aged two years, and that’s not what this piece seeks to do. Rather, given Turner’s recent spike in production, I wanted to examine if he had made a leap in his play to lead to that production. So I went to the tape to see where Turner’s game is. Let’s dive in.

Pass Rush

Looking at Turner’s athletic profile, his speed and explosion scores suggest that he should be best as a speed rusher, bursting upfield and getting around the edge to the QB. And indeed, perhaps his best rep over the last three weeks came on a speed rush against Seahawks’ left tackle Charles Cross.

On the play below, Turner bursts upfield, rips under Cross and turns the corner, contacting Sam Darnold at about 9 yards of depth and knocking the ball loose to record a strip sack:

However, Turner doesn’t have many speed-rush wins on tape. He’s not consistently running the arc as you may expect. I believe the reason is his speed and initial alignment. Turner aligns very wide, multiple yards outside the tackle or even further out when there’s a tight end, often outside the shoulder of even slightly detached TEs.

This alignment creates a wide angle for opposing blockers to cover, and means that the opposing tackle needs to get significant depth in his set quickly. Understanding Turner’s speed likely causes them to get even more depth. It’s important for offensive linemen to prevent Turner from running around the edge, and when they set that way, he needs to find another way to punish them. That punishment comes in the form of a speed-to-power move, the bull rush.

Turner’s most consistent wins over the past few weeks have come on bull rushes, which may be a little surprising given his size. Turner weighed in at 247 at the NFL Combine, which is light for edge rushers.

Turner has probably put on a little mass since entering the NFL, but he’s still undersized for the position. He’s able to make up for that size with leverage from a low center of gravity and use his long (34 ⅜”) arms to get into the chest of opponents.

The play below against the Seahawks was a great example, even if it wasn’t necessarily a pass rush win by Turner. On the play, you see Turner get into right tackle Abe Lucas’ chest and generate significant displacement on first contact. Lucas does a good job of using his technique to recover, but this helps show the power Turner has:

Turner had a ton of bull rush wins throughout the games. Some of the plays below are against TEs, which is certainly an easier matchup for an edge rusher, but it’s notable that he won nearly all of his reps against TEs and was consistently doing this against tackles as well: