Cowboys underuse KaVontae Turpin an undrafted offense

For nearly three years, return specialist KaVontae Turpin has made the Cowboys’ return game one of the most feared in the NFL. The former USFL MVP demanded respect from the start in Dallas, earning Pro Bowl honors as a rookie and see an ever-growing role in the attack along the way.

Although Turpin’s workload in Mike McCarthy’s offense has seen year-over-year growth, it remains a generally niche role. Through 11 weeks in 2024, Turpin has just five rushing attempts and 31 targets downfield. He is having a career season on offense but it is significantly less than what many in the media and fan circles provided for the former TCU recipient.

Turpin has largely been stuck in a supporting and gadget role over the years. Despite the obvious need for speed and playmaking ability on offense, McCarthy has struggled to get Turpin involved. The 28-year-old hasn’t made things easy for his coach, dropping some key passes and running some undisciplined routes, but it could be argued that it’s not Turpin’s job to fit McCarthy’s roles, but rather McCarthy’s job to find the right roles to Turpin.

Such a statement may sound like semantics or even blame-shifting, but the reality is that Turpin is only 5-foot-9, 153-pounds soaked and stretched out. He’s not the plug-and-play WR McCarthy has tried to make him out to be.

For most of the season, Turpin’s results on the field have been pretty underwhelming. Until, of course, he was used in a way that leaned on his strengths this past week. Turpin’s ability to be a gamebreaker was on full display against Houston when he took a routine slant route to the house for 64 yards. He showed his ability to separate, create in space and take a short pass the distance in an instant.

According to Seth Walder at ESPN, Turpin’s slant route for six points was just the second slant route Turpin has run all season. It is an unforgivable situation from an offensive coach who naturally leans on oblique routes to an almost absurd degree.

Instead of using Turpin on pick routes, screens and slants, the Cowboys have run their diminutive dynamo downfield, where his size and experience are understandably exposed. Over the past 2+ seasons in Dallas, Turpin has been misused and underutilized to an unforgivable degree.

An argument could be made that his actual number of touches is almost maxed out given his build and that McCarthy was simply keeping him as a return man. But with speed and play-breaking ability like Turpin’s, he doesn’t even need the ball in his hands to be impactful. Moving him behind the line at the snap and pulling him across the formation after the snap is a great way to spread defenses horizontally, open up space on passing routes and extend rushing lanes on runs.

It’s also worth pointing out that no one has any idea where this consumption rate maxes out, as it hasn’t been found yet. Turpin has played in 43 of a possible 44 regular season games since joining Dallas. He has been extremely durable, even in the high impact life of a returning man.

Turpin is a restricted free agent in 2025 and could be elsewhere in the near future. There’s a very real chance that his best years as an offensive weapon are ahead of him if his next coach is more willing to highlight him in ways that play to his strengths.

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