DJ Turner II Continuing to Play Elite Football At Midway Point of 2025 NFL Season

A career-best year for the young cornerback.

Oct 16, 2025; Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; Cincinnati Bengals cornerback DJ Turner II (20) gestures toward his bench as he walks off the field with an apparent injury against the Pittsburgh Steelers during the third quarter at Paycor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joseph Maiorana-Imagn Images | Joseph Maiorana-Imagn Images

CINCINNATI — Anyway you slice it, Bengals cornerback DJ Turner II is having a career-best season and is playing like a top-15 cornerback in the NFL.

Turner is right in that top-15 mix when accounting for yards per coverage snap allowed, mixed with EPA/play allowed among cornerbacks this season.

The Bengals' defense would somehow be another tier worse if it didn't have Turner. He leads the league with 14 pass breakups and is tied for 13th with two interceptions.

"Yeah, I mean, the game's slower for sure," Turner told the media in the middle of last month about his rise. "I've done a whole bunch of work in these offseasons, and my routines and stuff like that are where it's showing off now. So, you know, I've just been growing and, like I said, just every week trying to do better."

Among 13 Bengals players to log at least 300 defensive snaps this season, Turner is the only one with a Pro Football Focus grade higher than 62 overall (career-best 73.5).

"Those are the guys you just want on your team," Bengals head coach Zac Taylor said about Turner earlier this season. "Guys that you take a hard conversation and not get in their feelings about it and sulk and go have a bad practice and go in the locker room and get in the corners, the dark corners, and start getting in everybody's head about, 'I'm getting messed over.'"

Turner will try to lift the defense more in his third season after the bye week. Check out the deeper metrics framing his play below:

CB coverage through week 9 - yards & EPA allowed
- Top right = "good" | Bottom left = "bad" pic.twitter.com/2tMNWXiVZe

— Stat Acccount (@AcccountStat) November 6, 2025

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