Dallas Turner, EDGE, Alabama (Junior)
Rayane M
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Strengths :
- Takeoff very explosive
- Excellent coverage capability
- Very physical player
- Hybrid player
- Great athlete
- Smart IQ
- Age
- Good leverage
- Skilled handwork
- High motor
Weaknesses :
- Player prone to foul play
- Lack of skills in Pass Rush
- Still raw in some zone coverages
- Average bend
- Not the best Punch in the draft
EDGE Dallas Turner
— Rayane M (@RayaneScout) February 4, 2024
An ultra-explosive player who plays with an impressive pad level, enabling him to face players who are much heavier and more powerful than he is.
He already has an extremely high floor for a 21yo and could develop even further in the pros
1st Round Talent 💎 pic.twitter.com/NVIsgFNoEY
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Dallas Turner's career started like a cannonball following the great Will Anderson, and season after season, he proved he was here to stay.
Starting off, Dallas shows particularly explosive on his Takeoff (his first step to start a rep), showcasing overall great athleticism. Apart from his truly impressive explosiveness, he appears as a fluid athlete, capable of maintaining efforts over a good duration through significant explosiveness in his acceleration at times.
Thanks to his athletic qualities and smart pursuit angles, Dallas is quite good in his pursuits, sometimes capable of significant flashes in this aspect. One point to watch here is his delay in really starting his pursuits, which I personally find regrettable.
Continuing with his athletic abilities, his good vertical jump coupled with the reflex to hinder the QB on short passes when he hasn't breached his OL allows him to significantly complicate the QB's task. It's not rare to see him attempt to cut off tight pass lines thanks to his reach and sharp vertical jump.
While Dallas may not possess above-average strength, he plays low, maintaining Leverage advantage and developing more force than one might think. Ultimately, he can be very physical despite a relatively light weight. Even if he sometimes gets moved, he remains capable of absorbing charges from much sturdier OLs regularly.
Still on his Run Stopper abilities, Dallas rarely abandons breaking the block, even when well caught by the OL, attempting to extricate from the block to go for the play. Moreover, he respects his assignment by being disciplined and doesn't hesitate to really throw himself into keeping his gap responsibility on edge runs. It's solid.
In terms of his Pass Rushhis real strength currently lies in his explosiveness as mentioned above, but also in his skilled handwork. He often seeks to hunt the OL's hands in his Pass Rush phases before then speeding down to the ball.
As good as he is at rushing the opposing QB, he's equally good at defending the run and additionally has a very good coverage capability, whether in man or zone. This is very important as few EDGEs can really cover properly, and this extra attribute gives him a hybrid aspect that allowed him to play EDGE in Alabama's system but sometimes also as a more traditional LB in certain packages, performing very well when that was the case. This allows certain defensive coordinators looking for such profiles to have a bit of fun with game creation with Turner.
If Dallas Turner has played reps as an ILB, it's also due to his smart IQ. He reads the game rather well and quickly moves to the ball. However, caution with his reads; while he reads well and then quickly moves to the ball, he sometimes delays a bit on these reads, showing slightly too much patience. Finding the right balance between being sometimes too patient and thus a bit passive, and diving completely into the play without any read is necessary.
Finally, and perhaps most interestingly considering Dallas Turner's current level, is his age. He will be 21 in February!
Dallas is extremely young, and his floor is already very high, with a potentially insane growth curve. Just for that, he could go very early.
Dallas is extremely young, and his floor is already very high, with a potentially insane growth curve. Just for that, he could go very early.
Now, while Dallas is a player full of qualities, there are also points in him that could be real red flags. His tendency for reckless behavior could deter many. Caution with the foul play he sometimes exhibits; Dallas Turner is among those very aggressive players, often on the brink of nastiness, and sometimes makes quite foolish gestures. Love it or hate it, but it's also thanks to guys like this that sometimes a defense can step up.
He also lacks skill in his Pass Rush, being very raw on certain reps. He would benefit greatly from being more skilled and less engaged in physical confrontations with the OL.
He often opts for the easy route, either by crashing into the OL to, let's say bluntly, fight with the OL, or by deciding to bypass a Pass rush technique by charging into his gap. However, what's very troublesome is that in both cases, he does it by throwing himself fully into his action without paying attention to the rest.
As a result, when he crashes into the OL, he sometimes loses precious seconds that could have allowed him to make the play, and when he directly charges into his gap without laying hands on the OL, he doesn't read at all and can sometimes find himself completely out of play. In the worst-case scenario in the latter situation, he can end up opening an even bigger gap, thus opening a large Rushing lane for a ball carrier or a dual-threat QB.
Be careful to all these points, although, that said, I think Turner remains a very good football player and especially a player with a good football IQ. If his coach asks him to do something else to the letter, Dallas will surely execute.
Moreover, he clearly doesn't have the most magical Bend of the class; it's entirely adequate but nothing extraordinary. It does the job, as they say.
Turner will also need to progress on not always extending his arms; he sometimes struggles to create separation with the OLs because of this and can quickly find himself trapped in the block without being able to escape due to his lack of power.
Finally, despite very promising coverage abilities, be cautious in situations where Dallas finds himself defending a short zone, particularly the Flat zone when he has no direct threat. In this case, Dallas tends to Sit in his zone, that is, stay moving but in place waiting to see what happens, and he doesn't have the reflex to continue sliding in depth. The direct consequence is that he can sometimes open an intermediate zone just behind him for an intermediate route that took a bit of time to develop. (Feel free to check out our TTPalette on YouTube which talks a bit more in detail about soft and hard Flat concepts so the situation I'm talking about here might be a bit clearer for you).
In conclusion, if Dallas Turner has long been the little gem of Alabama behind Will Anderson at the EDGE position, his last season, solid but not dazzling, may have disappointed some people as much was expected of him taking over the torch from Anderson.
However, to think the player has lost value would be a huge mistake; Dallas is a really complete EDGE capable of pressuring the opposing QB as well as cementing his gap against the run.
Ultimately, when watching Dallas play, one might think we have a 23-24-year-old player in front of us, so high and solid seems his floor, but that's where we realize the phenomenon that Turner can become because he's only just turned 21 in February!
Having such a young player with a high floor and significant experience is a rare commodity. Dallas represents a great promise because even without development, you almost have the assurance of having an NFL-level player.
Capable of playing on all downs and in any PackageDallas is a player I absolutely want to see evolve as an EDGE OLB in a 30 system (3-4, 3-3-5) as his skill-set would be perfect. If Dallas is good in Pass rush and good in Run stophe's also not lacking in coverage abilities and has even sometimes been aligned as an Inside LB in certain exceptional situations, showing how versatile he can be.
In the hands of the right coach, Dallas Turner could be a formidable player in the NFL despite a bit of a foolish side that will please some but cool others. In any case, expect to get a very solid and disciplined player as Nick Saban knows how to form, and personally, I have no trouble seeing him go in the first round.
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