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- Mar 19, 2019
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“His football IQ, in my mind playing next to him, that’s the biggest thing that stands out people may not see,” center Corey Linsley said of Turner.
Added cornerback Tramon Williams about Amos: “He’s very smart, and he’s always in the right place. He’s a person you can count on at the end of the day, you know what I’m saying?”
Intelligence and reliability. That’s precisely what the Packers have in Turner and Amos, and they couldn’t be happier about it.
Turner quickly stood out upon arriving in Green Bay for everything from his unusual haircut to his off-beat interests to a peculiar sense of humor. With everything in measured tones, he fit in as the new veteran on the Packers’ offensive line rather easily.
Starting every game at right guard this season, he’s been steady with a couple of standout performances against premier defensive tackles – Philadelphia’s Fletcher Cox and Chicago’s Akiem Hicks in the rematch with the Bears this past week.
“He does a good job for us as a tone-setter,” offensive line coach Adam Stenavich said. “He’s a guy you can lean on to go against big matchups.”
It’s his mind that supplements those physical, athletic traits, though. With Green Bay already Turner’s third team in a six-year career, upon arrival in the spring he was accustomed to absorbing a new playbook in the normal course of an offseason.
Linsley, tackles Bryan Bulaga and David Bakhtiari, and guard Lane Taylor, on the other hand, had only known one offensive system their entire NFL lives. It didn’t take long for Turner’s smarts to get noticed.
“When we got here,” Stenavich said of the Packers’ new coaching staff, “Billy had been in, I think, four different offenses in four years, or something like that, and I had bounced around as a coach.
“You come here and these guys had only done one thing for so long. With me installing new things, Billy was picking it up, like ‘OK, that’s what this is. And this is that.’ For the other guys it was harder. They hadn’t had that newness.”
Communication with his linemates has been smooth from the get-go, too.
“He’s easy to talk to. We’re on the same page a lot,” Linsley said. “There’s very few times when we’re not, but it’s very easy to fix stuff with him. If we’re coming off (the field) and had a little issue … ‘I thought you were going to do this,’ … OK, we’ll just fix it, like that.
“I could tell (early on) he was a very calm football player, very intelligent, had a feel for the defense and everything.”