Dallas Turner spent most of last season sitting behind Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel on the depth chart. He flashed at times, sacking future teammate Daniel Jones in Week 1 and picking off Geno Smith in Week 16. Still, he didn’t make a start all year and only had three sacks and 20 tackles.
Making matters worse, someone impersonating a banker from JPMorgan Chase scammed him out of $240,000.
People will naturally highlight that the Minnesota Vikings traded up to take Turner at 17, while the Los Angeles Rams got Jared Verse two picks later. Verse made 16 starts, had 4.5 sacks, and 66 tackles, earning a Pro Bowl nod and the Defensive Rookie of the Year award.
Verse is 24 and more pro-ready. However, his upside may be more limited because he’s older than Turner, 21, and more of a pure pass rusher. Turner is also a defensive end, but it appears the Vikings are turning him into a player more like Van Ginkel than Greenard or Danielle Hunter.
“We’re looking for him to continue to improve as a rusher in the run game, early downs, third downs, in the different roles that we have him playing,” said Flores. “How many different ways can we rush him? How many different ways can we cover him?”
That doesn’t sound like the way a coach would describe a typical pass rusher.
It’s easy to look at Minnesota’s 2024 draft and conclude they drafted Turner as Hunter’s replacement. They let Hunter walk in free agency a year ago and replaced him with Greenard, but every good defense needs two pass-rushing threats so teams can’t focus all their attention on just one of them.
The Vikings traded up for J.J. McCarthy and Turner a year ago. They aren’t the first team to address quarterback and the pass rush, two vital elements to a winning roster, in one draft. The Houston Texans are the extreme example. In 2023, they drafted C.J. Stroud with the second pick, then traded up to take Will Anderson at Pick 3.
Many analysts didn’t love trading up for Anderson at the time. Still, the Texans were 3-13 in 2022 and have won 10 games in each of the past two years, rising from the bottom of the AFC South. However, they’ve lost in the divisional round twice.
We won’t know for years whether Houston’s draft strategy worked out. However, Minnesota’s situation is meaningfully different.
McCarthy showed out in the preseason last year but became the first first-round pick in the modern draft era to miss his rookie season with injury. We don’t know how he’ll compare to Stroud, because he hasn’t played a regular-season game yet.
Meanwhile, Turner unexpectedly fell out of the top 10 on draft night. The Atlanta Falcons took Michael Penix at eight with Kirk Cousins under contract, and teams prioritized offensive players early in the draft. Adofo-Mensah saw an opportunity and took it.
“When a player is that much of an outlier standing out, we trust our board, and our evaluation process is pretty good,” Adofo-Mensah said, explaining why he traded up for Turner on draft night. “But for players like that…who we thought were gonna go before we picked (before trading up), you don’t end up regretting those decisions.”
On draft night, Adofo-Mensah confirmed that Flores wanted Turner. “Flo’s a calm customer,” he said, “but he was excited.”
Flores’ excitement hasn’t faded after Turner’s rookie season. He wants versatile players like Josh Metellus and Van Ginkel for his madcap defense, and that includes Turner.
“‘Traditional,’ that word doesn’t really fit me,” said Flores. “When you’ve got a guy with Josh’s skill set, or Dallas’ skill set, all those guys can [play unique roles].”
Turner’s career probably hasn’t started as he envisioned. He had limited playing time as a rookie and got scammed in the offseason. Still, given that he’s playing in Flores’ unique system and possesses unique abilities, he has an opportunity to earn the kind of money that will make him forget about a caller with bad intentions.
He may have only had three sacks, but that pick indicates that Turner is capable of more than the average pass rusher.
