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 commanded respect from the start in Dallas, earning Pro Bowl honors as a rookie and seeing an increasing role in the offense along the way.

While Turpin’s workload in Mike McCarthy’s offense has grown year over year, it is still a niche role overall. Through eleven weeks in 2024, Turpin has just five rushing attempts and 31 targets. He is on pace for a career season on offense, but it is significantly less than what many in the media and fan circles envisioned for the former TCU receiver.

Turpin has largely been stuck in a supporting and gadget role over the years. Despite the glaring need for speed and playmaking 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 you could argue that Turpin’s job isn’t to fit into McCarthy’s roles, but rather McCarthy’s job is to find the right roles for Turpin.

Such an explanation may sound like semantics or even blame-shifting, but the reality is that Turpin is only 6 feet tall and 300 pounds soaking wet and stretched out. He’s not the plug-and-play that WR McCarthy is trying to make him out to be.

For most of the season, Turpin’s results on the field were quite disappointing. Until, of course, this past week he was used in a way that leaned to his strengths. Turpin’s ability to be a playmaker 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 cover a short distance in the blink of an eye.

According to ESPN’s Seth Walder, Turpin’s slant route for six points was only the second slant route Turpin has run all season. It’s an inexcusable situation for an offensive coach who naturally leans on slant routes to an almost ridiculous degree.

Instead of using Turpin on pick routes, screens and slants, the Cowboys have sent their diminutive dynamo downfield, where his size and experience are understandably on display. Over the past two seasons in Dallas, Turpin has been abused and underutilized to an inexcusable degree.

An argument could be made that his actual number of touches is near maximum given his stature and that McCarthy simply retained him as a good guy. But with the speed and game-breaking ability like Turpin’s, he doesn’t even need the ball in his hands to make an impact. Moving him behind the line at the snap and dragging him shallow through the formation after the snap is a great way to spread the defense horizontally, create space on passing routes, and widen the rushing lanes on runs.

It’s also worth pointing out that no one has any idea where that usage rate is at its maximum, as it has yet to be found. Turpin has played in 43 of a possible 44 regular season games since coming to Dallas. He has been extremely durable, even in the tough life of a returning man.

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

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