Kobe
King.
Kobe
King.
Penn St.· 6'1"· 236 lb
"A powerfully built, old-school Mike linebacker whose value in the modern NFL hinges entirely on his ability to impact the run game and lead the special teams unit."Pre-draft read
Downhill thumper who lived between the tackles at Penn State, aligned almost exclusively at Mike in a four-down front and asked to take on guards rather than run around them. He plays with a low pad level and heavy hands into contact, stacking the blocker's frame, working the outside shoulder, then discarding to fill the crease. Diagnosis is fast on zone and duo.
The secondary trait is tackling security in phone-booth space: he wraps, drives his feet and rarely gives back yards after contact. Pass work is functional, not fluid — he is a hook-curl zone dropper who reads the quarterback and triggers, but he lacks the change of direction to carry backs on wheels. The signature is the take-on: few 2025 linebackers shed guards this cleanly.
Gap-heavy four-down front that keeps him clean behind two-gapping linemen and asks him to attack downhill on early downs.
Year 1: base-down thumper and four-phase special teamer. Ceiling: two-down starting Mike who leaves the field in nickel.
Light-box match-quarters defense that plays nickel on 70% of snaps and requires the Mike to carry backs and tight ends in man.
His value is tied to how often the defense is allowed to play base personnel.
Kobe King College Highlights
Team-produced draft reel showing his downhill fits and block take-ons at Penn State.
NFL Draft Highlights: LB Kobe King
2024 season cutups from the Nittany Lions, heavy on inside-zone diagnosis and tackling.
Scouting Vikings 6th-Round Pick LB Kobe King
All-22 breakdown of his shed ability and the coverage limitations that dropped him to day three.
A four-year Penn State linebacker who arrived as a special teams body and left as a captain, King's identity is old-school Mike: signal-caller, run-fitter, block-destroyer. He is compactly built and plays bigger than his listed weight because he attacks blocks instead of absorbing them, and his best reps come when the offense declares a gap and asks him to win it.
The production curve tells the story — 3 tackles as a true freshman, 41 in a rotational 2022, 59 as a partial starter in 2023, then 97 tackles with 8.5 for loss across a 16-game College Football Playoff run in 2024 that earned second-team All-Big Ten. Against Ohio State and Notre Dame in the biggest games he was still the team's most reliable fitter. The flag was equally clear: he declined to run the 40, the vertical and the broad at the combine, which confirmed what the tape suggested about range and man coverage.
Boards had him in the fourth-to-sixth range with a two-down starter projection and a core special teams floor. At 201, Minnesota bought a plug-and-play run defender for base downs, betting the tackling and the football intelligence would hold up while the coverage limitations were schemed around.
- 01
Block deconstruction
Attacks the blocker's outside shoulder with heavy, accurate hands and separates cleanly, a rare trait for a late-round linebacker.
- 02
Run diagnosis
Reads guard and back keys quickly on inside zone and duo, arriving in the gap before the crease fully opens.
- 03
Tackling security
Wraps and drives through contact in tight spaces; he almost never gives back yards after first contact.
- 04
Play strength
Plays heavier than 236 pounds at the point of attack and can reset the line of scrimmage against a down block.
- 05
Leadership and processing
Penn State captain who made the front's calls and was trusted with checks against playoff-level offenses.
- 01
Range on the perimeter
Loses ground chasing outside zone and stretch concepts; ball carriers beat him to the sideline consistently.
- 02
Man coverage
Cannot carry backs and tight ends vertically; his hips are tight and he is a step late out of transitions.
- 03
Testing profile
Declined the 40, vertical and broad at the combine, leaving teams without answers on the exact athletic questions his tape raised.
- 04
Open-field tackling
Misses accumulate when he has to break down in space against shifty backs after clearing traffic.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Penn State | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Penn State | 13 | 41 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 2023 | Penn State | 13 | 59 | 1.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | Penn State | 16 | 97 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Career | — | 46 | 200 | 4.5 | 0 | 4 | 1 |
Verified against cfbstats.com game logs and the Penn State official career notes; season splits sum exactly to the career line (200 tackles, 18.5 TFL, 4.5 sacks, 4 PBU, 1 FF, 2 FR). 27 career starts.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Smart two-down linebacker who sticks for years on special teams value and base-down depth.
Compact downhill Mike whose block take-ons and tackling volume outrun his testing profile.
Late-round linebacker whose defensive snaps never arrive once coverage limits are exposed.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Minnesota kept him on the 53 out of camp and used him exactly as the pick implied: 77 special teams snaps and 3 defensive snaps across five games, with four tackles. When the Vikings activated Aaron Jones off injured reserve in late October they waived King, and the Jets claimed him off waivers on October 24. New York gave him nine more games in the same role, and he finished the rookie year with 14 appearances, no starts and 10 combined tackles across the two teams.
That is the honest ceiling of this archetype in the modern NFL. King's run-fitting and take-on ability are real, but two-down linebackers who cannot run with backs get 15 snaps a week and survive on teams value. Nothing in year one contradicted the evaluation — the tackling was reliable, the special teams work was clean, and the defensive opportunity never came because coordinators kept nickel personnel on the field. He is a useful roster piece who needs an injury and a run-heavy division to earn real defensive volume.
Data note: Verified against cfbstats.com game logs and the Penn State official career notes; season splits sum exactly to the career line (200 tackles, 18.5 TFL, 4.5 sacks, 4 PBU, 1 FF, 2 FR). 27 career starts.