PHILADELPHIA — The surgical viewing window and other rooms inside Arizona Equine provided Ty Robinson with an introductory course in anatomy and a baseline for his future.

“Gnarly” became normal, said Robinson, the Eagles’ 24-year-old rookie defensive tackle, who would often join his mother, Tresha, an equine veterinarian, at her Gilbert, Ariz., practice, where he saw his mom put her arm into the backside of a horse while performing an ultrasound.

“Horses are smart, but they’re also pretty dumb, too,” Robinson said. Sometimes they would get their heads caught in fences and get their eyes poked. Their hooves would sometimes crack. He’d peer through a window into a surgery room and see a horse on its back, its whole belly cut open, and watch a surgeon repair a twisted stomach.

These were formative experiences for a boy who would gravitate toward science and math and eventually take a pre-med path at Nebraska, where, besides turning into a 6-foot-5, 288-pound fourth-round NFL draft pick, Robinson focused his studies on nutrition and health sciences.

He learned at a young age that following his mother into veterinary medicine wasn’t for him. She once asked Ty at their home in Arizona’s San Tan Valley — where the Phoenix metropolitan area fades to desert sand — to open the mouth of one of their dogs.

“It snapped at me,” Robinson said. ”Yep, nope, not for me."

While he became a football star at Gilbert, Robinson was also told to find something he loved besides football, which couldn’t last forever. The snapping dog ruled out becoming a vet, and Robinson said he didn’t want to work with adults, either. What about kids?

“I’ve never met a kid that was scared to come up to me and just be a kid,” said Robinson, who has put off med school and a desire to become a pediatrician to pursue an NFL career. “Sometimes kids will shy away or they’ll be too afraid to interact. They just kind of have this welcoming feeling around me.”

Robinson’s background informed this path, too. His father, Jason, died at age 40, one day after Robinson’s 12th birthday and two years after being diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma.

“Sometimes kids can kind of feel helpless or alone,” Robinson said. “I kind of know what it’s like to be in that kind of emotional state. It doesn’t have to be saddened or frightened, but kind of how their brain is working at that point in time, to help them understand what’s going on. I feel like I can understand not to be too overbearing or too positive.

“Sometimes people would tell me things and in my head I’m going, ‘Can you just shut the [expletive] up?’ I get it. You feel bad for me. I appreciate it, but I don’t need to hear it 20 million times.”

Robinson was 10 when his father was diagnosed, and was “kind of ignorant to what was going on until it became more serious,” he said. Jason spent a lot of time in the hospital, and Robinson, the oldest among three children in the house, was forced to mature quickly. But Jason’s ordeal is also the basis for what Robinson wants to one day specialize in: pediatric oncology.

“I can relate in some degree to either a) what that family is going through, or b) what that kid is going through,” Robinson said. “Obviously I don’t know what it’s like to have cancer, but I know the effects of it on those around them.”

For now, though, “I want to give football everything I got, my full focus,” Robinson said. “It will always be there after football.”

‘Hungry for knowledge’

On the day he was traded, former Eagles defensive tackle Thomas Booker praised his position partner’s start to training camp, a start that helped make Booker expendable in a trade that enabled the Eagles to upgrade another position, cornerback.

“He’s been great,” Booker said of Robinson. “He’s been a sponge. Ty is extremely quick to learn things, extremely detailed. You can tell the extra time he spent in college is paying dividends in terms of his ability to learn scheme very, very quickly.”

Robinson spent six years at Nebraska. He preserved a redshirt year after playing in only three games as a freshman in 2019 and then was awarded an extra year because of COVID-19. He dominated as a 23-year-old super senior and became a second-team All-Big Ten selection after racking up 37 tackles, 12 of them for losses and seven for sacks. He also added four pass breakups and one blocked field goal.

NFL draft analyst Lance Zierlein described Robinson as a “bully with a roughshod playing style that forces blockers to match his physicality.” Robinson makes up for his relatively short arms with extra effort and a quick strike.

With the Eagles resting their starters in their preseason opener Thursday night against Cincinnati, Robinson got a chance to put his early work into practice. He executed a twist with fellow interior lineman Gabe Hall and got to the quarterback for a sack, one of three pressures on the night, and also snuffed out a Bengals screen play.

Robinson called going up against the Eagles’ elite offensive line in practice a “blessing and a curse.” He said he entered camp with little expectations. He just wanted to have fun and take everything “head-on.” Whatever was thrown his way, he said he wanted to go at it full speed.

“Ty’s done really well, but he’s a typical rookie, still learning and growing, trying to master his craft,” defensive line coach Clint Hurtt said. “From a playbook standpoint, there’s not a lot on the D-line guys, but from the technique and fundamental point, when you’re playing in there with grown men, there’s a lot. But he’s an eager learner. He reminds me a lot of [Moro] Ojomo in that aspect. They’re hungry for knowledge and know the why to everything, and I enjoy teaching that because I think that accelerates their development.”

Hurtt and Ojomo both said Robinson has been active in the meeting room, asking questions and listening.

“Ty’s a very smart player,” Ojomo said. “He’s a great rookie … and I think he has a really great pass-rush ability. He’s showed up every day, works hard, listens, and I’m excited to see what he continues to do.”

The Eagles are set with their top three interior defensive linemen. They have one of the sport’s best players at his position, Jalen Carter, a refocused Jordan Davis, and Ojomo, who has emerged in a major way after being a seventh-round pick in 2023. But Robinson figures to see playing time in the rotation. For now, though, the rookie says he’s not looking ahead.

“One thing I’ve learned is just to get better each and every day, because if you focus too far into the future, you lose yourself in that day,” Robinson said. “Or if you focus on yesterday, then you lose yourself in the same way.”

‘I don’t want to just be a ghost after football’

The Robinsons lived on five acres and drove 20 minutes just to get to high school. The home was rural enough that the Robinsons sometimes housed the neighbor’s camel, Humphrey, in their backyard. Robinson once brought Humphrey to Higley High as a senior prank.

And with due respect to Lincoln, Neb., a small city with a big college, this is Robinson’s first real taste of life in a big city.

“There hasn’t been a dull moment when I’ve gone out,” he said. “I enjoy people watching and observing.”

He got a small taste of the East Coast, he said, when Nebraska coach Matt Rhule was hired ahead of the 2023 season. The former Temple coach was born in New York City and later lived in State College. When he took over at Nebraska, he started recruiting from his East Coast pipeline, too.

“I think I fell in love with that East Coast culture, that Philly culture, when he brought that edge to Nebraska,” Robinson said. “This is a dude I can get behind and play for. I just loved his demeanor and the way he attacked things.

“I think it was just meant to be. I got to be taught two years of what Philly culture is like, the Philly mindset, and now I’m here.”

Being in Philly also means access to some of the best hospitals in the country, particularly Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. While med school has been put off, Robinson said he can see himself asking to shadow. At the very least, he wants to eventually get over there to spend time with patients, which he did when he was at Nebraska.

“We understood that Nebraska football brought them joy,” Robinson said. “Those face-to-face interactions truly did mean a lot to me.”

Whether or not Robinson ends up eventually ditching a football uniform for lab coats or scrubs remains to be seen. But he drew a connection between football and practicing medicine. A med school student might learn something one way, then have to adapt on the fly. A football player might know the X’s and O’s of a certain play, but “when you’re out there, it’s messed up and you kind of have to just figure it out.”

For Robinson, it’s comforting knowing there are other things out there for him besides football, but the rookie said he’s keeping an open mind and wants to see how it all plays out. Football, for now, is first, and he wants to see where it takes him.

“I’ve always thought about if I make an abysmal amount of money and have a lot of investments and I’m fortunate enough to have that type of career, OK, maybe you’re too old to go to med school now or maybe it’s something you don’t feel like you have the brainpower to do,” Robinson said.

Maybe, he said, he’d use his resources and start his own medical practice.

“It’s just kind of a bunch of ideas,” he said. “I just know I want to do something that’s going to be impactful after football. I don’t want to just be a ghost after football and never heard from again. I don’t need my name out there, but I definitely want to be making a difference with the opportunities that I’ve been blessed with.”

©2025 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.