Tag: DJ Turner

Mock draft still has Jaguars taking WR despite lower pick

Mock drafters still like pairing a wide receiver with the Jaguars.

The Jacksonville Jaguars offense has been cooking as of late with Christian Kirk, Zay Jones, and Evan Engram all posting career best numbers with Trevor Lawrence leading the way. Add Calvin Ridley to the mix in 2023 and the Jaguars offense is looking like it’ll be fun for many years to come.

Yet wide receiver and tight end continue to be the positions that dominate mock drafts for the Jaguars.

While the team’s recent win streak may have taken Jacksonville out of the mix for TCU receiver Quentin Johnston or Notre Dame tight end Mayer, Luke Easterling of Draft Wire still thinks receiver will be the move.

In his latest mock draft, Easterling has the Jaguars taking USC receiver Jordan Addison with the 19th pick:

The Jags could go in a couple of different directions here, but they should err on the side of helping Trevor Lawrence whenever possible. That means landing one of this year’s most explosive pass-catchers in Addison, who makes up for his lack of ideal size with precise routes, separation, and ability to create big plays after the catch.

Addison was the Fred Biletnikoff Award winner at Pittsburgh before transferring to USC.

In the second round, Easterling has the Jaguars slated to take Michigan cornerback DJ Turner.

Michigan vs. TCU: Top NFL draft prospects to watch during the Fiesta Bowl

With the Eagles set to have two first-round picks, we’re previewing the top NFL Draft prospects to watch in the Fiesta Bowl matchup between Michigan and TCU

The Eagles are 13-2 and looking to wrap up the division and home-field advantage in the NFC with a win this weekend over the Saints.

The game has playoff and NFL draft implications, as Philadelphia owns New Orleans’s 2023 first-round pick after a draft night trade in 2022 that landed the Saints Chris Olave and the Birds Jordan Davis.

Even with the NFC playoffs approaching, it’s never too early for a look ahead to April’s draft, and the College Football Playoffs offer the perfect scouting opportunity.

Two New Year’s Eve contests will feature the No. 4 Ohio State Buckeyes meeting the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs in the Peach Bowl and the No. 3 TCU Horned Frogs battling the No. 2 Michigan Wolverines in the Fiesta Bowl.

With kickoff a little over 24 hours away, here are the top draft prospects to watch when Michigan and TCU meet.

Michigan football rakes in on first release of Big Ten 2022 awards

So well-deserved! #GoBlue

While Michigan football’s season is ongoing with a Big Ten Championship game looming against Purdue on Saturday, for the rest of the conference, teams are awaiting the culmination of championship week to find out where their bowl game is, if they’re eligible to play in one. But the conference is taking the newfound off time, with the regular season in the books, to bestow individual honors to those who were exemplary in the regular season.

On Tuesday, the conference revealed the defensive honors, as well as coach of the year — an award Jim Harbaugh did not win last year in the conference but did nationally. Would he take home the award this year?

Here is who won what on Tuesday as the Big Ten revealed the defensive award winners, as well as the Big Ten coach of the year.

Raiders, Saints Final Week 8 injury report: Michael Thomas, Jarvis Landry both OUT

Michael Thomas, Jarvis Landry both OUT for Saints while Raiders have several receivers Questionable for the game.

The Saints are going to be very shorthanded at receiver when they face the Raiders Sunday in New Orleans. Both Michael Thomas and Jarvis Landry have been ruled OUT officially.

This will be the fourth game this season Thomas has missed. In his absence, Chris Olave has been the team’s leading receiver. Followed by Tre’Quan Smith and Marquez Callaway.

Meanwhile, the Raiders could possibly have their full receiver corps. Then again WR Davante Adams (illness), TE Darren Waller (hamstring), WR Mack Hollins, and WR DJ Turner are all Questionable for the game.

Adams missed the first two practices with an illness while Waller and Hollins have both been limited all week — Waller with a hamstring injury that kept him out of last week’s game against the Texans, Hollins with a nagging heel injury, and Turner with a hamstring issue.

Return of WR DJ Turner has veteran WR Albert Wilson cut by Raiders without playing a snap

DJ Turner is in, Albert Wilson is out without playing a snap for Raiders

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For Albert Wilson, what happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas. That being him in a Raiders uniform.

The veteran receiver was signed to the Raiders practice squad back on October 7, prior to their game against the Chiefs. Wilson wasn’t activated for that game, but was called up to the active roster on October 11 as the team headed into its bye week.

Coming out of their bye week, first year receiver DJ Turner was activated off injured reserve and with it, Wilson’s time with the Raiders came to an end. Which means he never even got a chance to put on a Raiders uniform.

Turner had an outstanding preseason with the Raiders, earning himself a roster spot as a reserve slot receiver and return specialist.

Coming into this game, starting slot receiver and punt returner Hunter Renfrow is questionable with a hip injury. Potentially making Turner’s return a crucial one.

Even if Renfrow is able to go, having a backup option is valuable. And it might be smart for the Raiders to let Turner handle the punt return duties, just in case.

Along with the swapping out of Turner and Wilson on the active roster, the Raiders released Tyron Johnson from the practice squad. He had been signed to the practice squad on the same day Wilson was called up from the practice squad to the active roster, making it possible Wilson could sign back to the practice squad.

Raiders, Texans Thursday Week 7 injury report: WR Hunter Renfrow (hip) misses practice

WR Hunter Renfrow suffers hip injury, misses practice Thursday

Teams are supposed to get healthy over the bye week. But today the Raiders got a bit less healthy. After being a full participant in Wednesday’s practice, WR Hunter Renfrow missed Thursday’s practice with a hip injury.

Renfrow returned in week five after missing two games with a concussion. Should his hip injury be serious enough to miss Sunday’s game against the Texans, he will have missed as many games this season as he played in.

It would also seem to raise the possibility of DJ Turner being activated after returning to practice this week after missing the past four games while on injured reserve.

Still missing today for the Raiders was Darren Waller who suffered a hamstring injury in the team’s week five game against the Chiefs.

Every player who was missing for the Texans on Wednesday returned to practice full today. Even a couple limited participants were upgraded the full. The only downgrade was DL Jonathan Greenard who apparently suffered a calf injury Thursday, limiting his participation.

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Raiders CB Anthony Averett, WR DJ Turner return to practice opening window for return from IR

Window open for return from IR for CB Anthony Averett and WR DJ Turner as both return to practice today

The season opener for the Raiders saw them stricken with a slew of injuries. Among them were starting cornerback Anthony Averett and reserve slot receiver DJ Turner. Both of whom were sent to injured reserve.

If a player in placed on injured reserve after the final 53-man roster cutdown, they are eligible to return after four weeks. That return window opens today and right on schedule, both players will take the practice field.

Keep in mind, this doesn’t necessarily mean they will play Sunday against the Texans. This opens a 21-day window for each player to be activated from injured reserve.

It’s also possible both are available right now, making their return today very good news.

Should Averett play this Sunday, his return would come at the perfect time, with fellow starting cornerback Nate Hobbs headed to IR with a broken hand.

Turner was showing himself to be a talented slot target and return specialist in the preseason, which is how he made the team. It will be good to see what he can bring to the offense as well as the special teams unit once he is ready to see game action again.

Michigan football preparing to enter house of horrors that is Kinnick Stadium

Hopefully, this turns out similar to the road game in Week 5 last year. #GoBlue

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Something no top-five team in college football wants to do is travel to Iowa City to face off against Iowa in Kinnick Stadium.

The Hawkeyes are impressive on their home turf, going 5-1 in their last six games against top-five opponents. Michigan was one of them, coming into Kinnick in 2016 ranked No. 3 overall, and surely would have been No. 1 with a win against unranked Iowa given what No. 1 and 2 had done earlier in the day. But alas, the Wolverines lost 14-13, and while their season wasn’t upended with the loss, it all but assured that the maize and blue had no room for error left.

That’s not a position this team wants to be in, especially this early in the season.

Iowa has the dead-last-ranked offense in the country, but one of the top-rated defenses. It thrives on turnovers and general chaos. And once the Kinnick crowd gets going, it’s easy to lose focus and let the fans in the stands play their part in beating you.

“I don’t know how many people they seat but it’s gonna be a whole bunch of people versus us,” junior safety R.J. Moten said. “We’ve gotta go with the mentality like it’s gonna be a hostile environment, probably be like everybody says, close to Nebraska last year. And we’ve just gotta go in there and just lock arms and focus for 60 minutes and I think we’ll come out with the win.”

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“Yeah, obviously, depends on the environment, right?” graduate tight end Joel Honigford said. “But with Iowa, you really have to focus on listening and making sure you’re taking all the information. And because not only are you trying to figure out what formation what play, what’s the snap count, but you got tens of thousands of people screaming in your ear, that are trying to disrupt you. So, it’s just taking that next step of focus and really honing in on it, and not letting the crowd get to you. And just being disciplined on what you’ve been taught and executing.”

But what makes Kinnick so daunting?

None of these current players know for sure. The last time the Wolverines traveled to Iowa City was that 2016 disaster. But they’ve heard stories. They know what’s coming.

“I mean, obviously, they’ve got their little psychological things that they do, right?” Honigford said. “The pink locker room. And I mean, it’s going to be loud, they’re going to be juiced up. And we have to focus on us and staying even keel, not letting the crowd get to us and just playing our brand of football.

“They’re gonna have their big plays, right? They are a good football team, no doubt about it. But it’s the trust in our game plan and the guys on the field, and just not getting too emotionally invested. Either way, kind of standing right there in the middle and just playing football.”

For some Wolverines, they’re channeling a similar scenario that they faced a year ago.

In Week 5 last season, coming off of an unimpressive win over an overmatched opponent (Rutgers), the maize and blue traveled to Wisconsin to take on the Badgers in Madison. The Wolverines hadn’t won a game there in 20-some years, and while the streak in Iowa City isn’t quite as long (the last win there was in 2005), the plan is to treat the game as the same as what they faced last year.

“It definitely will be — Big Ten West opponent, first away game,” senior cornerback DJ Turner said. “It’ll definitely be the same, and like I said, we want to do what we did in Wisconsin this Saturday.”

Iowa and Michigan kick off at noon EDT with the game broadcast nationally on Fox.

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Michigan football secondary: You cannot take Iowa’s offense lightly

Just ask some other teams that have faced Iowa what their final results were. #GoBlue

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Kinnick Stadium has been something of a house of horrors for top five teams, and while on paper Michigan should be able to go into Iowa City and get a win, that’s not how this team is approaching it.

There’s a big mismatch when it comes to the Wolverine defense vs. the Hawkeye offense, with Iowa having the 131st-ranked total offense in the country — dead last in all of college football. Meanwhile, Michigan enters the game with the No. 8 total defense.

However, ask Rutgers how it feels after having faced Iowa at home in Week 4. The Scarlet Knights currently have the No. 9 defense in the country, yet they lost to the Hawkeyes, 27-10 on Saturday. While the big part of that was due to two Iowa defensive touchdowns, Players in the Michigan secondary aren’t thinking this is going to be an easy matchup, by any means.

“You cannot take that team lightly or take them for granted,” junior safety R.J. Moten said. “So basically, our focus is just to stop the run this week and then get them to throw the ball. We know they’ve only got a certain amount of pass plays. We know who the quarterback favors and everything like that. So basically, we just want to stop the run and get them to those second and long and third and long situations where we can let the rushers rush and let us cover.”

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Iowa has run 229 offensive plays thus far through four weeks, and 95 have been pass attempts. Thus, the Hawkeyes, with 134 rushing attempts, want to run much more than pass. When QB Spencer Petras does pass, he’s completing just 51.1% of the time.

For the Michigan secondary, the challenge is, in part, staying focused, keying in on the run game, but being ready for when the Hawkeyes do want to work downfield.

“Just being able to run fit as corners,” Turner said. “Some guys might not have to tackle a lot, but there’s one of these games where you might have to fit in plays, and just execution and being disciplined. That would be the main thing.”

It was just six games ago that the Wolverines faced off against the Hawkeyes in the Big Ten Championship game, a game that Michigan won, 42-3. However, these two teams are different, with different personnel, of course.

Still, Moten says that while there are some new things this team didn’t see a year ago, there’s a lot that they can take away from the last meeting.

“A lot. I think they got the same OC or something like that,” Moten said. “So like everything is a little carryover — they’ve got some new things in there. So a different couple players have different couple positions, but I think most of them just carry it over.”

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What Michigan football’s secondary learned after playing Maryland

Definitely a learning experience coming out of that game. #GoBlue

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — This past Saturday, Michigan football knew it was going to be tested. And tested it was, with the high-flying Maryland offense coming to town and stressing the defense.

Through Week 3, Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa was the ninth-rated QB according to PFF, and the Terps had the 27th-best receiving grade entering Week 4. Thus, the Wolverine secondary was going to have to really step up to the plate when it came to defending the upstart Terrapins.

Michigan ended up seeing two quarterbacks, with Billy Edwards Jr. coming in on the final drive, but it held Tagovailoa to his own season low in passing, with 207 yards. Since Maryland passed more in the Michigan game overall, it’s impressive that the maize and blue held the Terps to their lowest yards per attempt of the season at 6.9. The lowest previously was 8.5 in Week 1 against Buffalo.

When it came to facing one of the tougher offenses in the Big Ten, Michigan safety R.J. Moten described the challenges that the Wolverines faced.

“The quarterback, probably one of the most elusive quarterbacks, and being able to control him in the pocket was one of our big focuses this week,” Moten said. “And, someone like the receiving corps probably was one of the best receiving corps we’ll see this year. Basically when they click it was like, ‘Oh, wow.’ But when they didn’t click, we had to capitalize on the mistakes.”

That said, it wasn’t perfect. Michigan found several things it needs to clean up before it faces another high-caliber attack through the air.

“It was definitely a good passing offense for sure,” senior cornerback DJ Turner said. “I do feel that’s one of the best we’ll see, with little Tua at quarterback. And then I feel like we did a good, held our own. A couple of things we can definitely sharpen up on but I felt we did good.”

Both Moten and Turner each had an interception in the game, and for Turner, it was his second takeaway of the year. He previously scooped up a fumble in Week 1 against Colorado State and returned it for a touchdown.

But what do the Wolverines have to do in order to stymy upcoming offenses that are proficient through the air?

Maryland, as a team, is now ranked fifth in that regard, and the Wolverines still have Ohio State (12th), Illinois (18th), Nebraska (19th), and Penn State (44th) on the schedule.

“Just pursuing, practicing pursuing, practicing wrapping up, practicing just gaining ground on open field tackling,” Turner said. “Just certain drills you can do throughout the week to prepare you more than you might not have last week.”

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