Bengals Film Breakdown: Analyzing DJ Turner II's First Career Start in Win Over Cardinals

Cincinnati beat Arizona 34-20. Chidobe Awuzie was out, which meant Turner made his first career start in the NFL.

Author:
Mike Santagata
Publish date:
Oct 11, 2023 8:14 AM EDT

In this story:

Bengals cornerback DJ Turner II went through the draft process with an interesting profile.

He measured in at 5-11, 178 pounds, which could be just outside of the thresholds that some NFL teams are looking from an outside corner. It’s why some draft analysts thought he would be a slot corner in the NFL, even though he played almost exclusively on the outside at Michigan.

The Bengals have been adamant that he is an outside corner for them. He proved them right in his first career start.

Turner put on a show against the Cardinals, taking the place of Chidobe Awuzie in the starting lineup. From coverage to run support, he looked like a player that is ready to make a weekly impact.

Let’s dive into his film to see how and why his first start was so spectacular and what he could do to improve moving forward:

Prototypical Movement Ability

Turner’s movement ability is the first thing that popped on tape for him at the University of Michigan. He runs a 4.2 40-yard dash, has smooth hips and change of direction ability. If a cornerback was built in a lab, he would be able to move like Turner. This movement ability is not just used to stay sticky in coverage, but can also be useful with widening the margin for error.

In the video below, the Cardinals come out in an empty set with running back Emari Demarcado lined up out wide. The Bengals are playing a Cover 3 match coverage with Turner in the deep third opposite of him.

Demarcado runs a 5-yard in route and even though it’s not how the play is typically drawn up, Turner matches him because no one is in the area after they were cleared out by the inside two receivers. Demarcado then enters the scramble drill by working toward the sideline. Dobbs is scrambling to and back toward the end zone. Turner is able to turn to keep up with him and then uses his speed to catch up and make a play on the ball.

Despite Turner not being in perfect position when Demarcado works out of structure, his movement ability saves him by allowing him to recover and make a play on the football.

Cloud Corner

Turner spent quite a bit of time in this game in cloud coverage. Cloud coverage is when a corner is playing the flats, typically as part of a Cover 2 concept. The Bengals ran a healthy amount of Cover 2 against the Cardinals.

This is essentially how you draw it up on a chalkboard. As the cloud corner, you want to force the wide receiver to take an inside release, but if the receiver takes an outside release, then you squeeze his route outside to the sideline. Turner (top of screen in video) jumps outside to try to force the inside release.

For the first six steps of the receiver’s route, he is working to get outside of Turner. This places him nearly out of bounds and in the no tread zone for a wide receiver. It also slows down the vertical route so much that by the time the receiver hits his seventh step and is working up the field, Trey Hendrickson has gotten pressure on Dobbs.

While the receiver begins working up the sideline behind him, Turner sinks and keeps his eyes to the inside for anything coming back his way. This is a teach tape example of playing cloud, as he’s making that vertical throw as hard as possible, while also looking to take any route that comes into his area. This is a textbook rep of cloud coverage from the rookie cornerback.

The Bengals drop into Tampa 2 from a Cover 0 disguise on the play below, which has Turner playing cloud coverage from depth this time.

On this play, Turner (top of screen) forces the inside release from the wide receiver, rerouting him at about 5-6 yards to disrupt timing. He keeps his eyes to the inside while he sinks and when the ball is thrown underneath, he quickly breaks and transitions to making the tackle. Germaine Pratt and Turner combine for a vice tackle.

A vice tackle is a two player tackle where one player comes from inside and the other comes from the outside so the runner has nowhere to go. The runner gives a fake to the outside, but Turner is in good position and doesn't overreact. Turner and Pratt work together to bring him down short of the first down marker on 3rd-and-long.

Overall, Turner did a great job in cloud coverage throughout this game, which is notable due to his size. He can play on the outside and thrive, not just by staying tight to his man and using his speed, but by also using his technical ability and willingness to be physical.

Physical Play

While Turner was willing to be physical at Michigan, there were some scouts who questioned if he could do it at the NFL level due to his size. He answered that question in a resounding way against the Cardinals.

Turner is the last line of defense on this play because the force player gets blocked just enough to not keep this inside. Due to the wide receiver blocking down on the safety, Turner is unblocked and is one-on-one with James Conner in the open field.

The Cardinals want Conner matched up with a corner because they think he can make that guy miss or at the very least run through him. Turner comes down and performs a textbook gator roll tackle by wrapping up the legs and twisting to trip him.

Turner does an excellent job of staying patient on this play to not take himself out of the play while approaching Conner as well. All around this is just excellent technique from the rookie cornerback to make a stop on what could have been an explosive play.

Turner continued his physical play in the screen game as he made another stop against the Cardinals. He does a fantastic job of reading out the footwork of the quarterback on this play to know the ball is coming out quick and then breaks on it in a controlled, but aggressive way. He finishes the play with a good hit that stops the ball carrier. Overall, it's a very nice play from the rookie.

This may have been the best play of the day from Turner. He is all the way on the opposite side of this run but makes an extremely high end effort play as he chases down the ball carrier and cuts him to make the tackle. He’s working from about the 50-yard line to inside the 20-yard line and goes sideline-to-sideline to make this stop.

A lot of corners on the backside don’t give this type of effort, but Turner showed that he’s not just an extremely talented player, but also a high-end effort guy.

Where He Could Improve

Despite the rock solid performance Turner gave on Sunday, there were two plays that showed areas he could still improve going forward.

The first is his ability to work through traffic.

This is a very difficult play for Turner. He starts in man coverage on the defensive right side, but you can see that Cam Taylor-Britt communicates a switch with him because of the fast motion. Now he has to quickly change his assignment to Hollywood Brown. Brown is going to run a shallow route away from Turner’s momentum, which causes him to get a step early in the play.

The Cardinals are running mesh and the whole design is to put as much in Turner’s way as possible. The shallow from the other side and the over the ball sit routes both get in his way and this ends in an explosive play for the Cardinals. Turner needs to show that he can navigate his way through traffic better as these plays are fairly common at the NFL level.

For the most part, Turner did a very nice job of staying controlled and making tackles, but he did miss one tackle after working through traffic.

Turner is in man coverage against Brown again on this play and fails to bring him down. The main issue for him here is that he’s just out of control. If you re-watch all of his plus plays as a tackler, he stays measured and calm on the approach to the tackle.

He never slows himself down on this play to make a good tackle. It ends with him completely whiffing and Brown able to gain plenty of additional yardage. Turner had room before the first down marker to slow himself down and make a quality tackle. He showed that he can do that earlier in this game so this does not seem like too much of a concern going forward. He just needs to be consistent in staying patient on tackles.

Concluding Thoughts

Turner was the best cornerback on the field for the Bengals on Sunday. He may have also been their best defensive back. The Bengals are four deep at cornerback this year, with Awuzie, Turner, Taylor-Britt and Mike Hilton.

Not only was this performance indicative of bolstered depth, but it was also the group of corners that most likely star for the Bengals in 2024. Turner and Taylor-Britt are going to be the starting cornerbacks for this team the next few years and their first game together was a smashing success.

It would be great if Turner could see the field more during the season when everyone is healthy. They could use him in a rotational role or deploy more dime personnel to get an extra defensive back on the field. It’s unlikely that he cracks the starting trio of corners, but anything is possible with the performance he had against the Cardinals.

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