Rams’ Whitworth to make NFL history at 40

Andrew Whitworth will make NFL history on Monday Night Football when he becomes the oldest player to start a game at left tackle at the age of 40 as the Los Angeles Rams take on the Arizona Cardinals in their huge all-NFC West clash.

The 2006 second-round Draft pick will become just the fifth offensive lineman to play at 40 since the NFL merger after celebrating his birthday on Sunday.

Monday’s game will mark the 236th of Whitworth’s career, 232 of which he has started, as he also joins Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, now 44, as the NFL’s only two active players who are at least 49.

Did he ever think he would be lining up as a starter at the age of 40?

“No definitely not,” he told reporters. “The first couple of times you get in there you’re just hoping you get a chance to survive in the NFL, much less play 16 years later and also play as much as I have so it’s definitely amazing and something probably, for me in my career, one of few weeks where there’s a lot of reflecting just because it is a pretty huge deal and something I put as a personal goal almost seven or eight years ago. To be here and think of all the things I’ve been through, it’s pretty wild.”

Availability and longevity remain underappreciated traits in a league prone to cutting careers short, a fear that landed at Whitworth’s doorstep when he required two knee surgeries before the 2013 season with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Overcoming the physical and mental toll of such a setback has paved the way to the milestone that awaits him on Monday night.

“At one time in training camp in 2013, I thought I may never play again just from how much I’d struggled through the surgery,” Whitworth said. “It’s one thing to rehab, but it’s another just thinking that this may be it, and you really don’t know until you finally feel good again and feel like yourself again. Sometimes that can take a lot longer than you plan.

“For me when I finally came out of what I call that darkness and thinking that was it I was like ‘you know what, with what I’ve learned from this and what I’ve been through, I would love to see if there’s any chance I could play when I’m 40-years-old’.”

Whitworth played in Cincinnati between 2006 and 2016 before signing a three-year deal with the Rams in free agency in 2017, reaching his fourth Pro Bowl in his first season followed by a maiden Super Bowl in his second on his way towards earning another three-year contract in April 2020.

“It became an outlandish goal I never thought I’d ever get close to, and then when I got the opportunity to sign here I was like ‘man, you’re coming kind of close to it if you finish this contract’ and then I thought I’d only play a year or two of that contract and it ended up being another contract and then even another year so it was just one of those things where it started getting close and now to be here is pretty wild when I think about how long ago those thoughts were.”

By now he’s well accustomed to jokes surrounding his age within the Rams camp, some of which seemingly come courtesy of his head coach.

“He’s like 500 years old or however you want to do it,” said Sean McVay, who is five years Whitworth’s junior. “I’m always ragging him in some way, but it’s really a backhanded compliment because I’m probably just jealous that I couldn’t do what he did.”

Opposition players have also been known to hold an intrigue, one Jacksonville Jaguars player asking Whitworth how old he was during a television timeout in Los Angeles’ 37-7 victory in Week 13.

“He came up to me and he was like, ‘Hey man, be honest with me, how old are you?'” Whitworth said. “He was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?! You’re not, give me some secrets.'”

Whitworth has played a key role in limiting opponents to just 17 sacks on quarterback Matthew Stafford this season, tied for second-fewest among quarterbacks to have started 11 or more games.

He and the Rams enter Monday night 8-4 and second in the NFC West behind the Cardinals, who are currently 10-2 having beaten McVay’s side 37-20 at the beginning of October.

The San Francisco 49ers are lurking at 7-6 in third after winning four of their last five, putting pressure on a Rams team that have lost three of their last four.

Week 14 in the NFL concludes on Monday night with the Los Angeles Rams (8-4) @ the Arizona Cardinals (10-2) live on Sky Sports NFL from 1.15am in the early hours of Tuesday morning.