Several former Michigan State players were hit with some bad news on Sunday as NFL roster cuts were made official but other Spartans also got good — and in some cases surprising — news.
Two former Michigan State linebackers suffered the opposite fate on Sunday as Joe Bachie was cut by the Lions despite performing well during the preseason and Jordan Turner made the Denver Broncos’ initial 53-man roster.
We’ve already talked at length about Bachie, and he’s going to be just fine. Turner, on the other hand, is one of four inside linebackers to make the Broncos’ regular season roster.
This marks the first time in his young NFL career in which he’s made a roster out of training camp. He’s now 1-for-2 in making the Broncos’ roster after the preseason and he’s not going to take this opportunity for granted.
Turner making it in the NFL is one of the least surprising developments to anyone who has watched him play a down of football. He was only in East Lansing for one year but he made his presence felt with 66 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, three sacks, two interceptions, and a pass breakup. He really burst onto the scene against Ohio State, posting one of the highest defensive grades against the Buckeyes since PFF started tracking.
Turner’s preseason success is no surprise to any Spartan of Wisconsin Badger fan because he was really fun to watch while he was still playing college football.
He was called up to the active roster last season and finished with seven tackles over seven games with the Broncos. He’ll have a much larger impact this year.
Spartan fans will be rooting hard for him this season.
One season of Jordan Turner at MSU wasn’t enough
While he ended his career in East Lansing, Turner should have been a Spartan from the get-go.
Unfortunately, Mel Tucker didn’t pursue the Farmington Hills, Mich., native who ended up playing three years at Wisconsin before transferring to Michigan State in 2024 for his senior year. He played for the Spartans during one of the most forgettable eras of MSU football which is unfair to him, but he was a bright spot during Jonathan Smith’s time in East Lansing.
The only disappointing thing about Turner was the fact that he didn’t play for Michigan State earlier.
No matter how much we all want to forget the Smith era, it’s impossible to overlook what Turner did in his lone season and he’ll go down as one of the most underrated Spartans in the post-COVID era.
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