Dallas Turner and Khyree Jackson were teammates at Alabama; in the attached photo, Turner is in the background behind Jackson. They were due to be teammates again with the Vikings.
Khyree Jackson died earlier this month. It has had a specific impact on Dallas Turner.
“I talk to him all the time,” Turner told reporters on Thursday, via Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com, “and get the chills every single time I talk to him. So, I know he’s watching over me.”
Turner has placed Jackson’s nameplate above his own in Minnesota’s locker room.
“As long as I’m alive, I’ll rep his name,” Turner said.
“So that was really a dude that I saw every single day, and really [I’ve seen] him grow from Alabama to when he went to Oregon,” Turner said. “He went through his trials and tribulations over there. We ended up at the same place once again. So, I kind of felt like that meant something, and that was my dude every single day after practice [this spring]. He was around with me at the hotel, hanging out with each other in the hotel every day and just talking crap and stuff like that with each other, just having fun.
“That was a dude that really helped me grow as a person. He helped me realize who I was, and he helped me build my confidence off the field and on the field in a way. But he [was] definitely a very impactful person.”
Turner and others from the Vikings will attend Jackson’s funeral on Friday, nearly three weeks after he lost his life in a car crash. The Vikings will keep his locker intact all year, and they’ll wear a helmet decal in his honor throughout the season.
