If NFL schedule-makers had a better understanding of the occasion, Andrew Whitworth would be playing football on Sunday, his 40th birthday.
Instead, the Rams don’t play the Arizona Cardinals until Monday night, so Whitworth will mark the big four-ohs on Sunday by flying to Phoenix with teammates, only a handful of whom have reached three-ohs.
There aren’t any partying plans the night before the Rams (8-4) fight for their NFC West life against the Cardinals (10-2).
“Not that I know,” Whitworth said on Monday. “At least I’ve instructed that there be none. I don’t like to make a big deal out of it.”
But Whitworth, a four-time All-Pro left tackle who won the George W. Bush entered the NFL during the administration, hardly holding back from a birthday. You play the biggest game of your season every year. You play your first game only once at age 40 – and only then if you’re a rare breed.
Whitworth is older than any active NFL player except Tom Brady (44). He has 231 regular season starts, 164 for the Cincinnati Bengals and 67 for the Rams, the third most active players behind Brady and Ben Roethlisberger and is tied for the 29th time with John Elway.
In a lighter mood after the Rams ended a three-game losing streak, beating the Jacksonville Jaguars, 37-7, on Sunday, Whitworth talks about the reactions of young players, as he does.
Jaguars linebacker Damien Wilson, 28, approached Whitworth during a TV timeout at Sophie Stadium on Sunday.
“He came up to me and hugged me and said, ‘Be honest with me. How old are you?'” Whitworth said. “I was like, ‘Ugh, I’m 39.’ He was like, ‘You’re kidding. You’re not!’ I was like, ‘I am. I’m 39.’ He was like, ‘This is unbelievable. Can you tell me some secret?'”
Whitworth’s advice to young players: Take care of your body, and learn to rest.
Last season, he caught Washington defensive linemen Montez Sweat, then 24, and Chase Young, then 21, talking and pointing at him during a timeout.
“‘Hey, how old are you?'” shouted one of them. “‘I am (38).’ ‘off course not!’ It blows them up to think I’m that old. Some people get blown away when they hear about playing with Chad Johnson (in Cincinnati).”
In his own way, Whitworth is blown away as well. The 55th pick out overall from LSU, he made his first pro debut for the Bengals at age 25, blocking for Carson Palmer on September 10, 2006, in a 23–10 win over the Chiefs and Trent Green.
“The first time you get there, you’re hoping you’ll have a chance to survive in the NFL, play very little after 16 years and play as much as I have,” Whitworth said. “It’s definitely surprising.
“Maybe for me, in my career, it’s one of the few weeks where a lot is reflected because it’s a huge deal and something that I had as a personal goal about seven, eight years ago.”
Whitworth says he aimed to play until age 40 after completing a difficult rehabilitation from patella surgery in 2013, and he made it as realistic as possible after signing with the Rams in 2017 as a free agent. started watching.
Whitworth is under contract until 2022. After seven games in 2020 and a separate knee injury this October, he can’t be sure about his future.
He said on Monday: “For now, I feel pretty good body-wise, and I see no reason to stop unless it works for both sides.”
The youngest Rams starter, linebacker Ernest Jones, turned 22 in November.
“He’s wonderful,” Jones said of Whitworth, “that just for him to do this for so long, he[receives]with the amount of respect, and he still does it with class.”
Whitworth has some elders to consult. He remembered what Wayne Gretzky said on a round of golf.
“(Gretzky said), ‘Just make sure you guys tear off that jersey and don’t walk away until you’re ready, because you’ll miss those moments and there’s nothing like a locker room. ‘Living now,’ said Whitworth.
Whitworth absorbs the jokes of the age in that locker room.
And some come from Rams coach Sean McVay, who is 35.
“I’m always ragging him in some way or the other,” McVay said Monday. “But I’m probably just jealous because I couldn’t do what he did.”
health Department
Brian Allen only has an MCL sprain in his right knee after being injured in the first game of Sunday’s game.
“It’s good news, where there’s nothing where you’re going to have him out for Arizona immediately,” McVay said, adding that Allen would go day-to-day upon returning to practice.
this is other Knees for Allen, who missed the entire 2020 season after injuring his left knee in 2019.
McVay said cornerback Robert Rochelle came out of Sunday’s game with a rib pain and would probably miss practice time.
notes
As the week began, the Cardinals found three-point support on the rams. This will be the first time the Rams are underdogs since the playoffs last January. Their game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in September was a pick-’em up (the Rams won), and they were minor underdogs a few days before their November 28 game against the Green Bay Packers, but favored the kickoff (the Rams lost). … After going through seven kickoff returners in the first 11 games, McVay indicated that Brandon Powell won the job with a 65-yard return of the opening kick on Sunday. McVay praised Terrell Burgess’s ban on drama. Powell, a former Detroit Lions and Atlanta Falcons, who was signed by the Rams in November, will have to move permanently from the practice squad to the active roster. … Whitworth said he got in touch with old friend Jared Goff after the former Rams quarterback threw a winning touchdown pass in the Lions’ first win of 2021 on Sunday. Sophie Stadium fans cheered as the play was shown on the video board during a Rams game. “I thought it was great, in our stadium, there was the reaction of the crowd,” Whitworth said. “I reached out to him to congratulate him and tell him how dear he is still here. Happy for him.”
