Turner’s Kicking (Butt) Amid Position Changes
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Moving from right tackle to left tackle, like Green Bay Packers offensive lineman Billy Turner did the past three games, isn’t as easy as riding a bike or falling out of bed.
“How I refer to this is something that I heard Packers legend Josh Sitton say a few years ago in Miami, and that is, ‘It’s like wiping your ass with your opposite hand.’ And if you’ve ever tried that, I’m sure you know,” Turner said on Thursday.
Turner is one of the unsung heroes of the Packers’ 6-2 start. After an underwhelming first season in Green Bay as the starting right guard, Turner was shifted out to right tackle to replace longtime starter Bryan Bulaga. He was excellent at a position that is practically as important as the left tackle in terms of taming top pass rushers.
When four-time All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari suffered a chest injury at Tampa Bay, Turner started the last three games at left tackle. At least he had the practice week to prepare. Last week at San Francisco, after fill-in right tackle Rick Wagner aggravated a knee injury, Turner had the 12-minute halftime to get ready for his move back to right tackle.
“Being able to, in the middle of a game, go from one side to the other, it’s not necessarily the physical part,” Turner explained. “You know you’re capable of physically doing those actions, those techniques that you’ve practiced for so long. It’s really just the mental aspect to tell yourself, ‘OK, instead of pushing with this leg, I have to push with the opposite. Instead of throwing this hand first, I have to use this hand.’ When you’re in sync during a game, you kind of get in the zone and you kind of just get in this mood of doing everything in the right way. When that gets disrupted, to be honest, it’s tough.”
Turner, the son of former Minnesota Vikings running back Maurice Turner, was a four-year starter at North Dakota State, including his final three seasons at left tackle. A third-round pick by the Miami Dolphins in 2014, he barely played as a rookie and started the final 12 games at right guard in 2015 due to injury. In 2016, he started one game at left guard and one game at left tackle. A day after that start at left tackle, he was released. Turner spent a few days with the Baltimore Ravens and the end of the season with the Denver Broncos.
After missing most of the 2017 season with a hand injury, Turner started 11 games for Denver in 2018 – four at right tackle early in the season and the final seven games at left guard.
In free agency in 2019, general manager Brian Gutekunst gave Turner a four-year, $28 million contract. It was a head-scratching transaction. In his five NFL training camps, Turner had never won a starting job. However, Gutekunst was drawn in by Turner’s athleticism and versatility. In those first five seasons, his 25 starts were split between 12 at right guard, eight at left guard, four at right tackle and one at left tackle.
While the phrase “jack of all trades, master of none” can limit a player’s career, it’s been a godsend for the Packers and a burden Turner has embraced.
“I would love to say that that [comfort] exists it just doesn’t really exist for me,” Turner said. “There’s no 100 percent comfort at any of those four positions on the offensive line and, honestly, I would rather have it that way than to get comfortable at one position, just given that injuries can happen. If you’re comfortable at one and you have to go to the other, it’s going to be really tough for you.”
While going from right guard to right tackle, then to left tackle and, now, back to right tackle might overwhelm some blockers, Turner has risen to the occasion. According to Sports Info Solutions, Turner has been guilty of three blown blocks (defined as any time a blocker does not successfully block the defender they attempted to engage with and, as a result, gives the defender an opportunity to negatively affect the play) in six games. Last year, he was charged with 35, the fifth-most among guards.
“Am I surprised at how well I’ve played?” he asked. “No, absolutely not.”
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