Turf Show Times
The third-year star brings a martial arts mindset to the L.A. interior
In a replay that may remind Los Angeles Rams fans of an old movie/tv street fight scene, one of the competitors seemed to always utter those famous words, “ I must warn you, my hands are registered as dangerous weapons.” For Rams defensive tackle Kobie Turner, life imitates art, with the inclusion of martial arts training into his offseason regimen.
Just a year ago, the Los Angeles Rams defensive line was a burning question mark, sparked and fueled by the monstrous hole left when Aaron Donald decided to ride off into the sunset. L.A. rebuilt the interior, with sophomore Kobie Turner as the cornerstone. Turner was coming off a stellar rookie season and according to NextGen Stats, he recorded 57 tackles, nine sacks, 45 stops (positive plays), 47 QB pressures and a 10.5% pressure rate.
As Donald went out the door, he gave Turner a going away gift, introducing him to his fitness guru, Al “Poodie” Carson, a martial arts instructor in the Krav Maga system. Donald had flourished under this unorthodox training and now Turner was offered as a new advocate. Soon after the finish of his rookie year, Turner flew to the Steel City for a week of individualized training and the two have been training off/on together since.
Carson teaches football players/students how to hone their hand-fighting skills and coordinate feet and hands to work in unison. He told Wyatt Miller of the Los Angeles Rams official site,
“Some of the ‘defensive linemen guru trainers’ have never been in a fight,” Carson said. “But offensive and defensive line play is a street fight, okay? It’s hand-to-hand combat. And that’s what we base it off of, and that’s where Israeli Krav Maga comes into play...When Aaron Donald walked into the facilities to train… (he) would come in and sit down in a chair. He would change his shoes, put his cleats on, ready to work, get his music ready. When Aaron stood up and walked onto the field, everybody else followed. And he never said, ‘let’s go. Everybody knew who the alpha dog was. What I’m seeing right now is Kobie Turner is becoming that alpha dog.”
Relishing his alpha dog and defensive captain role, Turner is not a lone wolf secretly taking pages out of AD’s training manual. Last summer he generously provided access to both the Rams offensive and defensive lines. He flew Carson out to the west coast to employ Krav Maga techniques to linemen on both sides of the ball and pitted them against each other for both units to grasp the attack/counter attack moves.
Turner responded in 2024 with production mirroring that of his rookie campaign, 62 tackles, eight sacks, 52 stops, and 48 QB pressures for a 9.8% rate. His production is even stronger when you factor in that he’s been forced to primarily play nose tackle at 290 lb. and has...
