THOUSAND OAKS — It’s been a common sight at Rams practices the past month. As the first-team defense cycles off the field, second-year defensive tackle Kobie Turner walks alongside Braden Fiske, deep in conversation.
The hands of Turner are in constant motion, like his “Conductor” nickname would suggest. He maps out different routes to the passer that they could have taken against that blocking scheme, or indicates a move that Fiske could have utilized in that instance.
“It’s been huge,” Fiske says. “Post-plays, he’s talking about, ‘What did you see? What did you get?’ What I could have done, what he could have did. Just finding ways to mesh and jell off each other, because that’s what I think makes a good D-line, when the four guys across the line are working together.”
As much as this is part of Turner’s effort to take on more leadership in his second season, it’s also part of Giff Smith’s plan to reinvigorate the Rams’ defensive line room following Aaron Donald’s retirement.
Fresh start
Smith walked into a unique situation when he was hired as the Rams’ defensive line coach in February. Like any new position coach, he was replacing the previous guy, in this case his own protégé, Eric Henderson, extremely popular and respected by the team as a whole.
But a month later, Donald retired. A future Hall of Famer, Donald had been the alpha in the Rams’ defensive line room since before the franchise moved to Los Angeles.
Between Henderson and Donald, the Rams had lost two key voices. But Smith, the Chargers’ outside linebackers coach before being promoted to interim head coach for the final three games last season, saw this as an opportunity.
“It’s a great time to kind of revamp,” Smith said of his approach, “and guys kind of let their own personalities go.”
The Rams’ defensive line room is full of big personalities. Bobby Brown III, Larrell Murchison and Desjuan Johnson are funny, loud presences in the locker room. Turner is, as Smith puts it, “the intellectual”, just as interested in the complexities of football as he is in anime and music theory.
Those individual identities helped form a group bond as OTAs and training camp progressed.
“It’s a fun room,” said Fiske, himself more on the introverted end of the spectrum. “At first, I think we were seeking for an identity, but we found it in the brotherhood that we have. We play well together, we have fun together. I think our room is one of the most fun rooms, but we work our butts off.”
Smith quickly endeared himself to his new players with his insights, always having an answer for every question while still encouraging them to talk among themselves to figure out their own solutions. Turner praised the new coach for his focus on the minutiae of defensive line that’s so easy to overlook.
Beyond teaching, though, Smith wanted to create some ownership for the veterans in the room. With five vets and five rookies on the roster entering training camp, an elegant solution emerged as Smith paired each vet with a first-year player in a mentor-mentee relationship.
“When you’re getting into these situations and you’re trying to develop some leadership,” Smith explained, “you gotta put them in a situation where they can lead in a small area.”
Turner, paired with Fiske, had been looking to take this step himself. He wanted to pass down the knowledge Donald and other players had shared with him last year, when he broke out with nine sacks as a rookie and finished second in Defensive Rookie of the Year voting.
As a rookie, though, Turner tried to keep to himself. He had been a vocal leader at his first collegiate stop at Richmond, then again began to speak up late in his senior season after transferring to Wake Forest.
But as a rookie, he wanted to wait his turn and earn his chance to speak up, especially with Donald in charge.
“It was his room then. So if he didn’t want to talk a whole ton and just wanted to show, then I was going to try to follow his example,” Turner said. “With AD leaving, there was a big leadership role left to fill. So I knew that I had to step up, take ownership, like, ‘That’s my room.’”
Walking around the Rams’ practice field at Loyola Marymount this year, you could hear Turner. In individual drills, he’d yell in exuberance after getting off the sled. After a big play by the second-team defense in scrimmages, he was among the first on the field to congratulate his teammates.
Head coach Sean McVay and his assistants have made sure Turner doesn’t feel like he has to replace Donald, he just has to stay true to himself. This style of leadership is his way of doing that.
“That’s kind of my personality. Last year was about earning my right to say anything,” Turner said. “I know that through my play last year, and last year isn’t where it ends, but then approaching each day the right way, I knew that I earned the right to be more vocal. … I want to bring a lot of that energy.”
Feeling young
Brown has felt the same responsibility to pass down what he learned from Donald, A’Shawn Robinson and Marquise Copeland as a rookie. Paired with sixth-round pick Tyler Davis, Brown was energized watching his charge’s six-tackle performance in the preseason opener.
“I was on the sideline screaming, ‘That’s my mentee,’ the whole time,” Brown said. “He was showing out.”
Brown has noticed a different urgency among his linemates this summer. In years past, Donald ate up such a large volume of snaps, primarily at three- or four-technique, that other Rams defensive linemen knew they didn’t have to focus on that element of their games. They had to “play the tambourine,” as Chris Rock would put it, to Donald’s lead performance.
Smith has had to work on getting players past that mindset, such as Brown accepting his status as a two-down player when this year he’ll be asked to pass rush on third down.
“It’s almost like college again, where everybody has to play or at least know how to play,” Brown said. “It’s just like everybody’s learning everywhere and doing everything.”
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Smith and assistant defensive line coach AC Carter believe this position flexibility can give the Rams an advantage on game day, allowing the team to move players from nose tackle to three- or four-tech and vice versa based off weekly matchups.
But none of that is possible if the players don’t take ownership, which has been Smith’s primary focus since he made the move from the Chargers to the Rams this offseason.
“I’ve been real proud about how they’ve gone about their work,” Smith said. “It’s been a fun ride so far. We’ve got a ways to go, but we’re making strides.”
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