Rookie Payton Turner bulldozes his way into his first career sack!
(Watch the replay at the end
) #NOvsCAR
: FOX pic.twitter.com/rD8uyCY3gc
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) September 19, 2021
It didn’t take long for Payton Turner to prove he belongs in the NFL. After resting during the New Orleans Saints’ season opener following a training camp injury, Turner dressed for the team’s second game and made a case to be one of their most impactful defenders. The Saints defense created seven tackles for loss, and Turner bagged three of them.
But a deeper dive shows just how effective he was — even if he was often doing it on his lonesome. At Pro Football Focus, Turner leads all rookie defensive linemen with six stops, which PFF defines as:
- On a first down, if the offense gets 45% of the way to a first down or less
- On a second down, if the offense gets 60% of the way to a first down or less
- On a third or fourth down, if the offense doesn’t get a first down
He’s also tied with Baltimore Ravens first rounder Odafe Oweh for the fourth-most quarterback pressures (4) in the entire rookie class, and he’s one of five first-year defensive linemen to get a sack through the first two weeks. And keep in mind that, yes, this was Turner’s first game at the pro level. It’s just one game, but his PFF pass rush productivity rating (a formula that considers overall disruption against pass-rush attempts, weighted to favor sacks) is second-best in the NFL at 13.2.
Here is where each of the first-round rookie pass rushers clocked in after Week 2:
- Jaelan Phillips (18th pick, Miami): 3.7 PRP on 27 attempts
- Kwity Paye (21st pick, Indianapolis): 2.5 PRP on 40 attempts
- Payton Turner (28th pick, New Orleans): 13.2 PRP on 19 attempts
- Gregory Rousseau (30th pick, Buffalo): 9.8 PRP on 48 attempts
- Odafe Oweh (31st pick, Baltimore): 8.6 PRP on 29 attempts
- Joe Tryon-Shoyinka (32nd pick, Tampa Bay): 0.0 PRP on 10 attempts
We need to see Turner carry that efficiency over to a heavier sample size (I can’t emphasize enough that it’s only one game for him), but you could see him improve as the contest drew on. After some initial rookie mistakes including a costly penalty deep in Carolina territory, Turner settled in and matched his opponents’ intensity. Then he surpassed it. By the second half he was putting Panthers left tackle Cameron Erving in skates and consistently wrecking plays.
That’s exactly what we wanted to see out of Turner and he’s still nowhere close to playing his best football. Once he’s cleaned up those errors with more experience, he’s going to be a problem for opposing offenses. As with a lot of things on this Saints team, we’ve got to exercise some patience until the product on the field matches what’s on paper. Look for Turner to take a big leap once Marcus Davenport, David Onyemata, and Tanoh Kpassagnon reenter the lineup. He’s in a good spot to succeed.
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