Was Dallas Turner a Bad Pick?
After extending Andrew Van Ginkel, the Vikings now have two 2024 Pro Bowl EDGEs under contract through the 2026 season. This sounds like great news for the team, but it invariably raises the question: What about Dallas Turner?
In the 2024 draft, the Vikings spent roughly the equivalent of two mid-first-round picks to select Turner, an EDGE out of Alabama. Last season, Turner served as a rotational player on obvious passing downs, where the Vikings employed three or more EDGE rushers, and performed adequately. Many assumed that Turner would soon take over starting duties, but Van Ginkel’s extension suggests Turner will likely continue to fill in as a rotational player or substitute for the next two seasons.
Some have already thrown out the “b” word (“bust”) in their description of Turner, but this is clearly an overreaction: not even a first overall draft pick can be expected to immediately compete with Pro Bowl level talent in their first NFL season, which is what Turner would have needed to do to unseat Greenard or Van Ginkel as starting EDGEs. It’s too early to know how Turner’s career will pan out, but his performance so far is still consistent with a long and successful career trajectory.
But even if Turner does turn into a competent starter, does the Van Ginkel extension suggest that the Vikings made a mistake in drafting Turner? After all, Turner’s cheap rookie contract is set to expire after the 2027 season (plus a possible fifth-year extension in 2028), so by the time Greenard’s and Van Ginkel’s contracts expire, Turner’s will have just one year left. Isn’t it a bit of a waste to spend all that draft capital for three years of a rotational player?
The short answer to this is “yes…but.” It was fair to criticize Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah for the price he paid for Turner, and it’s even more justified now that Turner’s role seems to be smaller than we originally thought. In hindsight, the draft picks spent on Turner might have been better used on the secondary or interior lines.
But teams don’t have the benefit of hindsight when they’re making their decisions. A historical analogy: during WWII, the US military spent time, money, and material building and transporting tanks to Europe, some of which played a key role in the invasion of Normandy, some of which ended up at the bottom of the English Channel. A priori, there was no way to know which was which: the allies simply had to send as many tanks as they could and hope that some of them would get the job done.
In 2023, the Brian Flores defense got off to a strong start, but they fell apart late in the season, in part because no EDGE except Danielle Hunter could generate consistent pressure. Consequently, the Vikings devoted significant cap space and draft capital to signing Greenard, Van Ginkel, and Turner.
It was (and still is) possible that one of those three would underperform or be sidelined by injuries, and the other two would have to step up to fill their place. Like the allied forces decades before, the Vikings spent enough to feel confident that some of their pass rushers could get home, even if they weren’t entirely sure which pass rushers those would be.
Furthermore, Kwesi’s recent remarks indicate that he always intended to extend Van Ginkel through 2026. This suggests that the Vikings drafted Turner with the understanding that he might not take over starting EDGE duties until several years into his career.
League-wide, the average age of a linebacker in 2024 was 26.3, which puts it near the middle of the pack among all position groups. Dallas Turner is still just 22 years old and will turn 25 right around the time his 4-year rookie contract ends, so the Vikings still have plenty of time to get value from Turner in the prime of his career.
Given the price they paid for Turner, it feels a bit disappointing for the Vikings to sit him for most of his rookie contract. But ultimately, the hardest part of building a contending football team isn’t finding a way to pay your best players—it’s finding those players in the first place. If Turner someday becomes the dominant EDGE the Vikings want him to be, he’ll justify the resources spent to draft him and extend him, even if it requires a bit of patience.
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