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Bengals Defender Has Taken Major Leap, Shines Bright in Latest Film Review

The third-year cornerback has made a leap this season!
Mike Santagata|
DJ Turner breaks up a pass to Romeo Doubs
DJ Turner breaks up a pass to Romeo Doubs | Tannen Maury/UPI

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Cincinnati Bengals

DJ Turner II was targeted seven times on Sunday against the Packers. He only allowed two receptions for 7 yards. He broke up four passes himself and forced a player out of bounds before they could get their feet down. One of those PBUs turned into an interception for Geno Stone. It was an incredible day, but he has had more than just one quality performance on the season.

Turner has the best forced incompletion percentage in the league (37%), the most passes broken up in the league (8), 4th lowest completion percentage against him (44.4%), and 8th lowest passer rating against him. Turner has clearly taken a leap in his third NFL season.

Movement Ability

Turner possesses some incredible athletic ability. He ran a 4.26 40-yard dash with a 1.47 10 yard split. That straight line speed has allowed for him to be one on one with some of the fastest receivers in the league and gives him the ability to recover when he gets in a bad spot as well.

Turner understandably jumps this route but an issue arises when it becomes a scramble drill. The receiver is now running away from his leverage. Watch as Turner catches up and then puts himself in position to break this pass up.

Not only does this speed allow for him to recover and keep up with guys, but his ability to accelerate and get to a top speed quickly gives Turner tremendous closing speed.

Straight line speed is great, but there are two other movements that a corner must have to succeed in the NFL. The first of those abilities is lateral agility. Turner chose not to test his lateral agility at the NFL combine but you can see the fluidity of his movement when in coverage.

Turner is running step for step with the wide receiver on this play and it allows for him to make a play at the catch point. There was no separation at the break point of this route. Plenty of corners have straight line speed but the ability to change direction is just as important.

The ability to decelerate and stop comes into play as well. There is no test at the NFL combine to test a player's ability to go from a full sprint to a stand still and yet one of the more common routes you will see is a wide receiver going from a sprint into a complete stop. Turner not only has the straight line speed and ability to go from 0 to 60 in a blink, but he can also decelerate from 60 to 0 just as quickly.

The goal of the receiver here is to get the corner to reach a full sprint and then decelerate and snap back to the quarterback. Turner does not know the route while it’s being run so he has to first keep up with the receiver on what looks to be a go route. Turner’s ability to decelerate and never give up separation to the receiver here is impressive. He has to decelerate faster than the receiver because the receiver knows that he is going to put on the brakes.

Turner has always had this level of movement ability though. There is something else in his game that seems to have taken a step forward though.

The Catch Point

There are three points of a route, the release point, the break point, and the catch point. Turner’s movement ability has always made him impressive at the break point but he would lose at the catch point despite staying close. Early in his NFL career, Turner would have quite a few plays where the receiver caught the ball against him even though he was tight in coverage. That has changed this season as he leads the entire NFL in passes broken up.

Turner is playing against Justin Jefferson on this rep and it shows some of his improved ability at the catch point. Jefferson has him sealed off with his body in between Turner and the ball. Despite this, Turner jumps and reaches around Jefferson to break this pass up. Turner needs to get a little creative on plays like this because he lacks the length of some of the bigger corners in the league.

Turner showed up big on this throw to Amon-Ra St. Brown as well. Turner recovers because of his athleticism and never panics. He finds St Brown’s hands as he tries to catch this ball and knows where the ball is going to be placed. He then responds by finding the ball and knocking it away before St. Brown can catch it. 

Turner’s improved play at the catch point really showed up this past week as he managed to breakup four different passes.

This may have been the most impressive play he made at the catch point as he has to dive across the receiver to reach this ball before the receiver can get his hands on it. His consistency at the catch point this season seems to have come with a more physical style of play this season. Turner looks to have become more comfortable with physicality in coverage this year.

Turner refuses to be bullied by Jerry Jeudy on this pass. He matches Jeudy’s physicality throughout the play and then makes a play on the ball to stop Jeudy from catching this pass.

Turner has flashed like this before but what feels different so far this season is the consistency through six weeks. Turner has only had one week so far this season where he has allowed more than +1 coverage EPA. That came against the Jaguars and that game can be placed just as much if not more so on the defensive coaching for staying in the same single high coverages where Turner was asked to play outside leverage against crossing routes.

Turner has actually allowed more separation according to NextGenStats as he has allowed 2.9 yards of separation in 2025, 2.6 in 2024, and 2.1 in 2023, but he has gotten better at actually breaking passes up in 2025.

His coverage EPA (expected points added) is sitting at -10.1 which is 6th best in the entire NFL. Even with the tighter coverage in 2024, his coverage EPA was +5.2. In 2023, it was a massive +22.1. It doesn’t seem to be a case of a small sample size either as Turner has played 371 snaps so far this season through six games while only playing 507 snaps last year and 829 in 2023.

There’s a clear path of progression for Turner over his NFL career and it seems as if this season may finally be the point where he moves from an interesting player with flashes to a quality starting corner who could be a piece to build upon in the future. He’s been the best coverage player on the Bengals defense this season and if he can maintain this level of consistency, then he’s going to earn a contract extension.

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Mike Santagata
MIKE SANTAGATA

Mike Santagata is an offensive line and film expert. He's written and analyzed Bengals film for the past four years. He also hosts the Always Gameday in Cincinnati podcast and is a regular guest on the Locked On Bengals podcast.

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