While the 2025 season hasn't even come close to meeting expectations for the Minnesota Vikings, second-year edge rusher Dallas Turner has appeared to turn a corner in the last few weeks, and it has fans excited about his future.
In his last three games, Turner has generated a total of 12 pressures and four sacks, according to data from PFF. In the six contests before his successful three-game stretch, he only accumulated 10 pressures and one sack.
On Wednesday, Minnesota's young edge rusher explained how listening to some advice from Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores has played a large role in his play reaching another level recently.
"Coach Flores, he taught me something when I first got here. One of my first couple weeks [he said] to get to the splash plays, you know, to the things that everybody likes, the glamour and stuff like that, you got to get gritty first. You got to get down in the dirt to get sexy.
So that's just the stuff that I took from his coaching points when emphasizing stuff like that, and just the progression of a player, as a team, and everything. So, just keeping those words with me throughout my whole career, I feel like it [has kept] me at the mindset I'm at now."
Dallas Turner proving why the Minnesota Vikings traded up to draft him
With the Vikings giving up assets to trade up in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft to select Turner, some were beginning to get concerned about his performance during the first few weeks of the current season.
But his recent surge has, unsurprisingly, eliminated a bunch of those concerns, especially since his performances have come against three of the best teams in the NFL this season in the Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, and Seattle Seahawks.
In addition to Turner making more of the plays that don't get as much notoriety, the Vikings quietly changed how they use him earlier this year, and it's had a big impact on his performance.
During Minnesota's first five games of the 2025 season, Turner was only rushing the passer on 71.3 percent of the pass plays that he was on the field for. But since the Vikings returned from their bye in Week 7, that pass-rushing percentage has climbed to 82.1.
Turner getting more reps under his belt and Minnesota allowing him to focus more on rushing the passer has clearly made a big difference in his development, and the scary thing is that it seems like he's really only just started to scratch the surface of his true potential.