Postgame NFL locker rooms are home to a variety of fashion statements. Designer outfits, leather suits, vibrant faux fur vests. If you can imagine it, chances are someone has donned it.
As the Rams showered and dressed following their 37-14 victory over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, Kobie Turner took a simpler approach. The rookie defensive tackle, coming off his first career two-sack game, pulled on a black hoodie with the anime character Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta on it.
A member of the media recognized and appreciated the merch, and asked which iteration of the character it was. The 6-foot-2, 288-pound Turner looked down, found an identifying feature and replied with his usual, wide grin.
It’s not a typical locker room conversation, but that’s not something that has ever bothered the Rams rookie, which is why he went with the unorthodox “conducting the orchestra” celebration following his first sack Sunday.
“The Conductor is probably the most secure human I’ve been around,” Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris said. “He likes what he likes. He’s very comfortable in his skin. There’s nothing you can do to make him sensitive about himself. Because he’ll let you know: ‘If that means being in touch with my feelings, Coach, I am.’ … If everybody could live like Kobie Turner, we wouldn’t have as many problems as we have during the world that we have now.”
Humble origins
Kobie Turner was named after a fish. Sort of, kind of. Like with most things related to Turner, the story is unique.
When his mother was pregnant with him, his father caught a cobia, a type of fish that can grow up to 82 pounds. The fish was longer than Turner’s father was tall, and he told his wife they should name their child Cobia after his trophy. Turner’s mother flat-out refused. But later in the pregnancy, his father combined the fish with Hobie, the outdoor brand, and they agreed on the name Kobie.
Despite these origins, Turner was not a big fish in football recruiting circles coming out of high school. He had a late growth spurt, lacked elite speed and played multiple positions, which made him harder to evaluate. He got some Division III attention, but even a strong senior season couldn’t elicit a scholarship offer.
“I don’t know what it was,” Turner said. “But I’m actually so grateful that it happened that way, or otherwise I would not be the man that I am.”
Turner began looking into whether he could get a musical scholarship, turning his passion for singing into a collegiate opportunity. But FCS school Richmond offered him a preferred walk-on spot as a tight end, and he jumped at it.
By the time he saw the field as a redshirt freshman, he had transitioned to the defensive line. He had 2½ tackles for loss that season, then seven sacks the next year as he was named third-team all-conference. Then as a redshirt junior, he was named the Colonial Athletic Association’s co-Defensive Player of the Year for the shortened spring season in 2021.
As he ascended the ranks, it was his football IQ that continued to buoy him.
“I’ve never been the fastest guy, I was always really physical, but my dad always says I always knew where the ball was going,” Turner said. “In high school, I saw, this guy’s pulling, I know if he’s pulling then this guy’s blocking down on me and I can just wipe across.”
As he worked in relative anonymity at Richmond, he did come up with a signature celebration, the one he busted out after his two sacks against the Cardinals on Sunday.
While listening to music in the Richmond locker room with teammates, Turner acted like he was conducting an orchestra. His friends liked it and told him to do it after his next sack.
And so the Conductor was born.
“It’s crisp, I like it,” fellow Rams rookie Byron Young said. “It’s his own style and it’s unique. And that’s the type of guy he is, he’s a unique guy.”
Staying true
Young and Turner worked out at the same facility prior to the draft. There, Young noticed Turner’s dedication, always looking for extra work to do in the weight room. But it was when they roomed together for rookie camp and studied their playbooks together that Young realized something else about Turner.
“He’s very smart; very smart. Like, smartest person I ever run into,” Young said. “He’s that type of guy that’s just ready to learn.”
The coaches noticed the same thing from the first day of camp. Defensive line coach Eric Henderson always tries to push his rookies from the onset, challenging them to understand some of the most complicated concepts of the Rams’ defense.
“He’s trying to trick them with questions: ‘Can I run a go this or a spark that?’” Morris recalled. “And [Turner] was one of the few guys that picked it up right away and knew what was happening and why it was going on. He was the guy answering all the questions until you gotta get to the point you tell him to be quiet and let some other people answer the questions.”
It wasn’t long before that translated into production for Turner, from a sack in the season opener to four straight starts in the middle of the season to Sunday’s two-sack performance.
All the while, Turner has felt no pressure to fit into an NFL mold, even when veterans try to tease the rookie.
“He is one of those guys that you can’t get him because he’s unfazed and he’s super secure in himself,” head coach Sean McVay said. “He is refreshingly so secure in who he is. His teammates love him. You can’t help but root for a guy like this.”
“He’s a funny guy,” Young added. “Good vibes all the time. Never a guy you’re upset with. He never tries to make anybody uncomfortable, and that’s what I like about him.”
Turner can be heard singing throughout the locker room and team meetings. He is an avid anime fan, something that doesn’t necessarily permeate every NFL locker room. And with headphones on all the time, veterans can make jokes about Turner being part of the “iPad generation”.
“Kobie’s going to be him no matter what,” rookie wide receiver Puka Nacua said. “The defense is more joking around than the offense is, so everybody figured out kind of early, like, you can say whatever you want, but tomorrow he’s going to come in and do the exact same thing.”
“There’s a large part of times, earlier on in my life, when I tried to be somebody who I wasn’t for other people, or I tried to hide certain parts of me,” Turner explained. “I feel like when I’ve been at my best, it’s been me being my authentic self. And whenever I try to be somebody else, something clicks in my head, like, ‘This isn’t you, Kobie. Stop putting on this mask.’”
So when you saw him conducting the orchestra last weekend, that was Turner: football and music, celebration of his gridiron accomplishment and his own identity off the field.
“It shows that we’re more than just athletes,” Turner said. “That music side of me is so important; it helps me on game day, it helps me all the time. So just to be able to show off the full totality of myself, hopefully other guys might see that and be like, ‘I can be whoever I am and I can still be a good football player.’”