Inside the locker room at Intermountain Health Performance Center in Henderson, Nevada, conversations are had about everything from family and fatherhood to route trees and protection schemes.

It's where you can hear raucous debates about upcoming MMA fights or the latest weekend's slate of college football games.

It's also where you'll find a tight end from Napa, California, sitting next to cornerback from Excelsior Springs, Missouri. And after they line up across from each other in practice, their neighboring lockers allow for the occasional friendly banter to continue away from the field.

"He just talks," Brock Bowers said as he looked over at Sam Webb with a grin on his face.

"He would never say nothing to me," Webb replied. "I'm always talking [expletive] to him though. He doesn't have any comebacks."

Theirs is one example of the relationships born out of proximity to one another.

As cornerback Nate Hobbs describes it, sitting next to someone in the locker room is a lot like being back at school.

"You come into science class, and you don't have desks, y'all got them long [tables] and you sit beside someone, you get to know them better," he said. "Might not have even known them or messed with them, but you talk a lot more. It's a conversation starter. You're with them all the time. You probably know what they're going through, what they're fond of, not fond of."

And when it's your first day of "class" in the NFL, having your locker next to another first-year player can help with the transition.

Offensive linemen Thayer Munford Jr. and Dylan Parham were roommates in 2022 when they first arrived in Las Vegas and have had lockers next to each other ever since.

"It's just cool seeing him really outside of football," Parham said. "I'm getting to know Thayer pretty well. We've experienced a lot obviously going through our rookie year together. We were both playing early in our rookie year and it was nice having somebody to really go through that struggle with, not really knowing what to do as a rookie and then just seeing each other grow."

Just as Munford and Parham discuss what they see on the offensive line, defensive tackle Matthew Butler is "all ears" to the insight and expertise across the ball as well.

After most practices, you can find Butler and offensive lineman Dalton Wagner side by side at their lockers watching reps on a tablet and offering each other critiques. Wagner provides alignment tips on stunts for Butler and Butler returns the feedback from a defensive perspective for Wagner.

"He's asking, 'It was play action, how did you know it was pass?' or 'This was a hard run and I was trying to keep it neutral,'" Butler said.

The value in mixing up the locker room layout is, per Head Coach Antonio Pierce, another way to build team camaraderie.

"You always see offense and defense, you've got to interact with one another," he said previously in September. "You can't be a team if you just sit next to D-line room all day. So, I think in there, for example, like Maxx [Crosby] is next to Big Mike [Michael Mayer] I believe it is ... just moving some of our younger guys around to be with a veteran presence, right? So maybe that little five or three minute conversation they could have, that can go a long way for us down the road."

While these conversations at lockers often start with football, there's a good chance they end up somewhere else.

"You become great friends with them, you learn their interests, you hear the music they're listening to, you hear the videos they're watching and just grow close," Butler said of the bonds built. "It's been cool kind of having three different locker spaces over the past three years and just learning about all kinds of different people."

Between the NFL Draft, free agency and constant roster additions and subtractions, players come and go with the yearly roster turnover, but their impact on their locker buddies can linger long after they leave.

In 2022, Duron Harmon started 16 games at safety for the Raiders in what was his 10th and statistically best season in the NFL. While he only spent one year with the Silver and Black, his presence in the locker room next to Hobbs and safety Isaiah Pola-Mao is still paying dividends in 2024.

"One of the coolest guys, man, shoutout to 'Du,'" Pola-Mao said. "He really would just always talk to me about trying to build up my confidence, trying to build up my football IQ. I'll never forget him because he was a major part in my development, especially my rookie year."

Fast forward to 2024 and the roles have reversed. Pola-Mao is in his third NFL season and has played in 39 games with nine starts. In the locker next to him is rookie cornerback Decamerion Richardson, the Raiders' 2024 fourth-round pick (112th overall).

"Decam, that's my dog, man," Pola-Mao said. "He's real country, he's lowkey a cowboy. … I'm like, you know what, I might've never talked to him outside of football and stuff like that, so it's cool being next to a guy like that."

For Webb, his growth and maturation on and off the field has been aided by running back Ameer Abdullah.

"He actually helped me out a lot," Webb said. "He just would always put me on game. … telling me how to move. I came from D-II, so it was a big jump."

It's those types of relationships that - in the midst of a difficult season - can help keep energy high throughout the week.

"We rock with each other, like we're real friends," Jakobi Meyers said after the Week 12 defeat to Denver. "Guys hang out, especially me and the receivers. Those are my boys so we're going to stay together for sure."

The same way a science project is more fun with your friends, it's more fun to be in a huddle with people you not only know but enjoy working with. When gameday hits, it's even more rewarding.

"It's almost like you have a sense of pride when your lockermate makes a play or does something good," Pola-Mao said. "Like man, holding it down, that's my dog right there."

A new season can often bring a new lockermate, but one constant for the Raiders of late has been the duo of punter AJ Cole and kicker Daniel Carlson.

"This is what, six years? We're like an old married couple at this point," Carlson said. "We basically spend as much time together as we do with our own wives."

"We can finish each other's sentences and sandwiches," they said in unison.

"We're really close on and off the field and I do think that carries over on the field to have a certain level of communication, trust, the little intricacies of football," Carlson continued. "There's always little conversations in the locker room. You mix it up. It's about life, about practice, you get a couple extra seconds here and there between meetings. That just adds up over the course of six years now together, so it's been a fun journey."

That's the beauty of an NFL locker room.

It puts a two-time College Football Playoff National Champion next to a former UDFA from Missouri Western State. Despite vastly different paths and personalities, when two players share a locker space, it can create a special kind of bond that lasts long after their playing days are over.

"Different walks of life, different people, different states, the chance to meet any of these people if you didn't play football is insane," said wide receiver Tre Tucker. "It's really cool. I always love it like when you get on a team - and obviously the NFL is different, some of the same guys still stay here - but each and every year, the rookies come in and you don't really know them well. But by this time, you know everybody well.

"Everybody knows everybody. That's one of the things that I'll love about this sport forever."