World’s Best Preview: Son of former Vikings and Packers player, Turner will get first taste of border war

Overlooked coming out of high school, Billy Turner made his own NFL dreams come true.

Billy Turner has a rare perspective on the Green Bay Packers-Minnesota Vikings border war, a fierce rivalry that will continue on Sunday at Lambeau Field.

Turner’s father, Maurice, was a 12th-round pick by the Vikings in 1983. He played in 23 games for Minnesota in 1984 and 1985 before finishing the 1985 season with three games for Green Bay.

“I grew up in Minnesota and grew up watching ever since I was little, so it’ll be cool to play in it,” Turner said on Thursday. “That being said, it’s another game. It’s a 0-0 mentality. We’ve got to win.”

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Turner’s father was a running back and kick returner. So, how did Turner end up on the offensive line and, ultimately, become the Packers’ starting right guard?

“That’s a great question,” Turner said. “The first position I ever played – I was in third grade, and my neighbor and best friend was the quarterback. He was a year older than me. I was the center and I also played middle linebacker. My first year in high school on the freshman team, I played tight end and D-end. My sophomore year, I was planning on playing tight end. My brother was a receiver and my dad was a running back and I wasn’t super-big. I was probably 6-3, 240, so I figured I was going to be a tight end. The dude that was playing offensive tackle on the varsity team got hurt and was done for the year and they didn’t really have anyone to play it, so they asked me. From there on out, I was an O-lineman.”

The path to the NFL wasn’t preordained, though. Even though he was an all-state offensive lineman at Mounds View High School in Shoreview, Minn., and even though his father and older brother (Bryan Kehl) were NFL players, Turner wasn’t a hot recruit. His home-state school somehow turned a blind eye to the budding star located just 20 miles from campus.

“The University of Minnesota didn’t really recruit me,” Turner said. “My mom’s brother, my uncle, went there; he was a running back. They didn’t recruit my brother [Maurice Turner Jr.]; he ended up at Northern Iowa. They didn’t really recruit me, either. We had a lot of big-time recruits in the area my senior year. We had two offensive linemen who were top 10 in the country. We just had a lot of dudes in our state that year that were very gifted athletes and were very highly recruited, so I kind of got overlooked. I had a lot of D-I-AA offers but I ended up choosing North Dakota State. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.”

With his family’s football success, the NFL long had been Turner’s goal. Being deemed not good enough by the nation’s premier football factories might have been a setback for some athletes. Turner, however, found inspiration in those who conquered the small-school path.

“It was still my dream, 100 percent,” he said. “I knew that it didn’t matter where I went to school. Opportunities come from all places. I remember watching [New Orleans Saints left tackle] Terron Armstead at the Combine running like a 4.8 and he was a small-school guy. I was like, ‘Damn.’ I remember Taiwan Jones out of Eastern Washington, a running back, he came out early from there and was a fifth-round pick. That was my freshman year, too, so seeing stuff like that is what reassured me that it didn’t matter where you went to school. Anything was possible and it didn’t matter. If you had skills, they were going to be seen by someone, somewhere. That’s all I needed to see, to be honest. From that point forward, I kept my head down and kept working on my craft and started getting noticed more.”

Turner started 56 of 57 career games for the Bison. He was a two-time FCS All-American and three-time national champion. Sure enough, his play got him noticed. The Dolphins selected him in the third round of the 2014 draft. He started 12 games at right guard in 2015 and a game each at left guard and left tackle in 2016. In 2018, Turner started seven games at left guard and four games at right tackle for Denver.

Loving Turner’s athleticism, flexibility and zone-scheme experience, the Packers gave him a four-year, $28 million contract in free agency. Turner immediately was placed at right guard – a sore spot after losing T.J. Lang following the 2016 season – and quickly won over quarterback Aaron Rodgers with his “fun energy” and “no-nonsense” demeanor.

More than just a guard, Turner could be the No. 1 option should left tackle David Bakhtiari or right tackle Bryan Bulaga be unable to play. With Bakhtiari missing practice on Thursday, there’s a chance Turner could be starting at left tackle vs. the Vikings.

“Trust your coaches and trust your technique,” Turner said about switching positions. “If all else fails, come off the ball fast, play hard, play physical and try to take whoever’s lined up against you and try to take him off his point. Whether it’s pass, whether it’s run, you’ve got to use your advantages and trust your technique and everything that you’ve learned up until that point.”

Turner was born four years after his father’s NFL career ended. Still, he grew up immersed in a rivalry that will be contested for the 118th time on Sunday.

“I remember the game when [Brett] Favre’s father passed away and they were playing the Raiders. I remember him throwing four or five touchdown passes,” Turner said. “I remember the game when the Vikings came here and Randy Moss mooned the fans. There’s a lot of memories. I remember staying up watching the games, knowing it was a rivalry game and how amped people were about it and to see how passionate the Vikings and the Packers were playing that game. That’s really what I remember more than anything.”