Special teams coordinator John Fassel hoped that his undrafted rookie return man would be a surprise for opposing teams in 2022. Nope. | From @ToddBrock24f7
The element of surprise is a huge part of special teams play, and something that Cowboys special teams coordinator John Fassel loves to save for gameday, to unleash in just the right situation, against just the right opponent.
So he admits he was perhaps just a little disheartened when late-spring signee and undrafted free agent KaVontae Turpin electrifyingly took two long returns to the house in the team’s second preseason game versus Los Angeles.
“He broke it and I was like, ‘Yeah, great for him!'” Fassel recalled for reporters this week. “But then, immediately, I thought, ‘Ugh, teams are going to be on him now.'”
Turpin may have been flying under the radar since leaving TCU in 2019. But the cat is now out of the bag: the USFL’s MVP sure looks like he can play in this league, too.
“You sign a guy in the middle of training camp, I don’t know maybe if I was just hoping that there was going to be a secret with him. Maybe there wouldn’t have been,” Fassel said. “The secret’s out, and I think he’s going to be really good.”
Turpin surely won’t be a surprise when he makes his NFL regular-season debut in Week 1 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. What no one knows quite yet, though, is how willingly opposing teams will test him in punt and kickoff situations.
“I think when we’re on kickoff return, there’s probably not much we can do about having them put the ball in play,” the coordinator explained. “That’ll be a decision that the opponent will make. We’ll have a decision about how far back we want to move him back to return kickoffs, whether it’s on the goal line [or] a couple yards deep. The situation could call for being aggressive compared to being smart. On the punt, I think there’s ways to force the opponent to put the ball in play. We’re working on that right now. Because obviously anybody that goes against a Turpin- including us if he was on another team- you’re looking at, ‘How can we force this guy to make fair catches, or [do we] punt the ball out of bounds?’ I think that will be the mindset a lot of teams will have.”
Whether or not the 26-year-old Turpin becomes a perennial and consistent return threat or simply had the game of his life at SoFi Stadium remains to be seen, of course. But the fact that he’s capable of breaking one every single time could be enough all by itself to give the Cowboys’ third phase a big boost.
“We’ve talked about the ‘Devin Hester Effect’ quite a few times that Chicago had. Their blockers knew they had somebody that could score every time they touched the ball. The guys that were blocking for Hester: we’ve watched a ton of the tape, we’ve watched all of his touchdown returns, and you could just see the relentless approach that those blockers had. It’s quite a relationship between returner and blocker when they each feed off each other and have confidence in one another,” Fassel said.
“There’s just that little bit extra when the blockers, they’ve got somebody back there like Turp.”
Turpin himself is all about giving a little bit extra, too. After bouncing around the IFL, the Fan Controlled Football League, the Spring League, the European League, and the USFL… all in the span of three years, he’s looking to make the most of his late break at the NFL level.
“He’s out there catching balls pre-practice every day,” Fassel offered. “So all the things that you love to know about somebody’s work ethic, personality around the guys, that checks the box times a hundred.”
And thanks to a thinned-out corps of pass-catchers currently in Dallas, Turpin expects to get some game reps at wide receiver, too. Real routes and everything, offensive coordinator Kellen Moore promises, not just the obligatory end-around or occasional trick-play reverse.
“It’s been really cool to watch him become a receiver,” Moore said. “I think that’s the coolest thing: as other guys, as the season and training camp progresses, other guys might be out a day and he can just hop in there and start taking advantage of plays and opportunities. We see him as a receiver, and I think he’s going to play a role that’s a receiver and not just a gadget guy, so to speak.”
“We’ll balance that,” agreed Fassel. “There’s not going to be such a thing as probably too much work for Turpin. That’s my hope.”
From a relative unknown to six different leagues over two years to MVP of one of them to, suddenly, a highlight-reel phenom starting for America’s Team, it’s safe to say the 5-foot-7-inch speedster isn’t a surprise any longer.
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