Alabama held their Pro Day Wednesday and Dallas Turner, who some draft analysts and scouts believe could be the first defensive player taken, performed 20 reps on the 225-pound bench press, an event he skipped in Indy, but otherwise stood on his combine numbers. Overall Turner wasn’t too impressive at his Pro Day, and there was one big change that may be a red flag to scouts.
Turner, who was named a First-Team AP All-American and the SEC Defensive Player of the Year this past season, previously put on a show at the combine, running a 4.46-second 40-yard dash and turning in big numbers in both the vertical leap (40.5 inches) and the broad jump (10-foot-7).
However, one major change from the combine to his pro day was that Turner seemingly beefed up. After checking in at 6-foot-2 3/4 and 247 pounds in Indianapolis, he reportedly weighed in at 256 pounds Wednesday, according to ESPN's Cole Cubelic.
Maybe it’s nothing. Plenty of prospects have dropped weight at the combine just to put it back on and get back to their regular playing weight, but former Alabama Crimson Tide and Atlanta Falcons offensive lineman Mike Johnson did say on The Morning Shift that gaining that much weight in that short amount of time isn’t necessarily a good thing.
“That’s not usually a healthy beef up to gain that much weight in that little amount of time," Johnson said. "And to be honest with you, none of his numbers completely blew you away."
Mike went on to talk about how the biggest advice he would give Turner is to just basically do what he did in college when it comes to managing his weight.
“Whatever you were doing in college stay right there," Johnson said. "Don’t worry about the NFL game being different. You’re going to get drafted based on what you did in college and don’t out think it. Stay where you’re at, keep your weight the same, don’t think about beefing up, don’t get caught in not being in the ‘Bama offseason deal just do you man. And I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a little bit concerning to me to be honest.”
At Alabama’s Pro Day yesterday the Alabama Outside Linebacker/Edge Rusher sat down and spoke with NFL Network Insider Tom Pelissero and told him that he has upcoming pre-draft visits with the Bears (who own the number one and number nine overall picks in Round 1), Falcons (number eight) and Vikings (numbers 11 and 23), among other teams, so despite the weight gain and less than stellar performance at his pro day if Turner has good meetings with teams that are interested in drafting him he could still very well be the first defensive player taken off the board in April’s draft.