Andrew Whitworth’s Journey from Recruit to Champion to Mentor

DAVID GREENE, HOST: Alright, and then there were four. Four teams are left in the NFL playoffs heading into the conference championship games this weekend. and if you had told me before the season that you woulda picked these four teams to be the last ones standing. I mean, yeah, no way. I would not have believed you, and that’s kind of a lesson, right? Pre season chatter as fun it is. It doesn’t mean a thing.

So we’re down to Seattle, Denver, New England, and the LA Rams.

The Broncos and Patriots. I mean really the story there: young quarterbacks who are shining sooner than we ever imagined. Drake Maye in New England. Bo Nix in Denver. I mean yeah neither were perfect last week. but they showed veteran-like poise when it really mattered.

But god — poor Bo Nix, the Broncos young quarterback. He wins in overtime. His team, all of those Broncos fans at Mile High Stadium are celebrating like crazy. And then we learn that Bo Nix broke a bone in his ankle right at the end of the game, and so he’s done. He’s done for the season. If the Broncos are gonna win a Super Bowl — they’re going to have to do it without their young star. I mean we’ve talked about here on our show how injuries can suddenly, out of nowhere, change the trajectory of a career, even a franchise. but you know what, Bo Nix is gonna be back. Broncos fans, you’re gonna be okay, he is going to be your star for a long time and we’re thinking of you in your recovery Bo Nix.

And then, man what can we say about the Chicago Bears? Their young quarterback Caleb Williams made the most insane throw last weekend to take the Bears into overtime. But then he threw a pick in overtime and a veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford and his LA Rams closed out the game, won at Soldier Field and they are heading to the NFC championship game against Seattle. Oh Bears’ fans, wow, what a ride. I mean, so many comebacks so much insanity, you brought a lot to all of us this season and you too have a very bright future with Caleb Williams as you’re quarterback.

You know — it is really easy to focus on these quarterbacks, for good reason. but as you watch the games this weekend — I mean, maybe focus also on the trenches. The offensive guards and tackles doing the dirty work to protect their qb’s or get the running game going. It is such a grudge match.

Last time Matthew Staffard and the LA Rams made a run and won the Super Bowl four years ago, one of their big men in the trenches was Andrew Whitworth and he told me about the tense fourth quarter in that game.

BROADCASTER: SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, California, the site of Super Bowl 56\. The YouTube TV kickoff show begins now.

[MUSIC]

ANDREW WHITWORTH: All the pressures on the line, this is like the moment you’ve been waiting for your whole life.

DG: It is Superbowl 56\. The LA Rams are up against the Cincinnati Bengals at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. And it is exactly the kind of game you want in a Super Bowl. I know, as I was there in the stadium, watching from the stands, it was really close the entire game. Rams and Bengals are going neck and neck. A touchdown here, field goal there, but even into the start of the fourth quarter, neither team has been able to pull out ahead by much. Right now, the Rams are down by four soO lineman, Andrew Whitworth, is on edge.

AW: You know, we play a very unique position. I don’t think people think about it sometimes, but it’s, you know, I can’t think of another, but I think it’s the only position in the world where you’re back to the ball at all times. You know what I mean? We never know where the football is. You know the only way you know where the football is, is if the pass goes over your head, you know, or by your eardrum, and you can hear it. You learn how to play off-field and what’s going on around you, and judging by the defense, how they’re moving and adjusting their eyes and what they’re looking at in their body and all that type of stuff. So you’re literally learning how to block off field because you don’t actually ever know where the running back is or where the ball is.

DG: It’s kind of an insane game for Andrew. He is late in his career, 40 years old, and the only other Super Bowl his team made it to, they lost. So he really wants this. He’s been with the Rams for five seasons now. And before that, he was with the Bengals for 11 seasons. Yeah, the Bengales, same team he’s trying so hard to beat right in the last few minutes of this game. With about a minute and a half left in the fourth quarter, Rams need a score to take the lead. They’re at the goal line. Quarterback Matthew Stafford is eying star wide receiver Cooper Kupp.

AW: It’s a play where we’re calling a run, um, that has a pass tied to it. And so it’s really kind of a, you know, it’s the old, you discuss it all throughout the week, right? I’m, you know, “Hey coach, you know, could it be handed off or could it not?” You know? And it’s like, well, you know, smart coach talk, like it could always be handed off, right? But the reality is they put Cooper out there on the outside for a reason, and he never lines up out there in those situations. He saw me as the inside guy, and so they were gonna throw him the football. I don’t think Matthew Stafford had anything in his mind other than I’m finding a way to get Cooper Kupp a football and see if we can win this game. And the look worked out exactly what we wanted it to be. And so I came off like if they handed it off. So just kind of trying to knock a guy back, and next thing I know, kind of he falls off because he’s fading backwards, it’s a pass. And I was like, man, just get down. So I get down. You know, and sure enough, I hear the place go crazy, and I know exactly what happened.

[CHEERING]

[MUSIC]

BROADCASTER 1: Pass. Kupp! Got it. Touchdown.

BROADCASTER 2: Well, I’ve got to tell you, in a pressure situation, I don’t know if I have ever seen anybody be better than Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp. They had no choice.

DG: With that catch, the Rams are up by three with about five minutes left in the game. Andrew and his teammates are on a high and so is the entire stadium. I mean, they’re playing the Super Bowl at SoFi in LA. Big Rams country.

AW: It was an unbelievable feeling. I mean, I, you know, I think in those moments, I’ve played long enough that you know games are never over. So I was really excited. I’m pumped up like, hey, all right. Now my first thought is like, all right, we got to make this extra point, you know, and then it’s all right, made the extra point. You know, go talk to the D man, get those guys riled up. We got work to do.” Hey man, y’all got this, your time now.” You know it’s, this is what they live for. Those D linemen, I mean, they live for those moments.

DG: But Andrew knows not to get ahead of himself. The Bengals still have a shot to come back. As Andrew paces back and forth on the sidelines at SoFi, he suddenly finds himself transported back in time, three years earlier, to the last time he played in the Super Bowl.

AW: One of the first places I went in that moment was to my first Super Bowl, and not that game, in 2018, losing to the Patriots.

[MUSIC]

AW: One of the coolest moments of probably my entire career was also and one of the most devastating in people’s eyes, probably. And that is you’ve played for at that point, 14 seasons. You’ve won a lot of football games. You know, at that time, going into that off-season, I was holding the record for the most consecutive playoff appearances without a win. I was 0-8 in the playoffs going into that season. You win against Dallas at home, you go to New Orleans, have this crazy ending, the penalty, a no penalty call, home state, home stadium that I played in and won state championships, national championship. You seem destined. Go to the Super Bowl, think that that just is, just is just gonna happen, you’re just gonna win. Because it’s just a destined season, right? It’s all come together for me finally. Lose the game, and then I go to leave, and I look up in the stands, and my family’s sitting in the back of the end zone, kind of up at the second deck, and they’re in the first row of the second-deck, and I can see my son, Michael, who’s my football lover of my four kids. He’s just bawling, crying, and my wife’s holding them in her lap, and he’s at this time eight years old, and I look at him, and I just have this feeling over me like “Hey man, tell him that the best way you can show them that you’re okay and get him to better is to like you put a smile on your face and make him feel okay” And I had this moment. I looked up at him I got his attention and I pulled up both my arms and I flexed my muscles because he always loved to flex his muscles and I’m like smiling, and I’m like, “Show me your muscles.” I’m motioning him, “show your muscles”, because no little kid can flex their muscles and not smile. They just love that, they think it’s so cool. And I was just like, I just had enough composure in that moment, I didn’t feel done. And I didn’t feel it was it, like a lot of people thought that was gonna be my last game of my career then. And so I do that and I just standing in there trying to get him to smile, and finally he’s like balling crown, he puts a half smile on his face and he flexes both his arms up at me.

DG: This memory reverberates through Andrew’s mind, his last Super Bowl appearance that broke his son’s heart. And then he’s back at Super Bowl 56, just crossing his fingers that his defense can make a stop and end this game.

AW: I’ve played long enough that you know games are never over.

[THEME MUSIC]

DG: From WHYY and PRX, this is Sports in America. I’m David Green. Andrew Whitworth is an NFL legend. Four-time pro bowler, he played for 16 seasons into his 40s, then retired as the oldest tackle in NFL history. He was known not just for his skill and longevity on the field, but also widely recognized for his character and his charity work in his personal life. Now he’s on the broadcast side of the sport, working as an analyst for Thursday Night Football. I’m going to be honest with you guys this interview was really fun for me. Not just because Andrew is charming and vulnerable and honest, but also because, like I said, I was lucky enough to go to that 2021 Superbowl in person. I saw Andrew on the field fighting to keep the defense off QB, Matt Stafford long enough to make each play. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time to sit down and talk to Andrew in person to hear the thoughts that were running through his head through that game was enlightening. We will get to hear everything that 16 years in the league taught him, how to sweet talk the defenders he was up against, whether he’d play again, knowing what he knows now about the risk of brain injury and how the game helped him learn to take care of himself and also the people around him. We’ll get into all that in this episode, but first back to the final crucial few minutes of Super Bowl 56\.

Are you worried as you saw the Bengals marching down the field?

AW: In my mind it was this is a situation where they had enough time to get a field goal. And so I really thought once they had that big play at the beginning, it’s like all right, telling you know, kind of with the O-lineman like hey guys stay ready. You know hopefully we let them stop and do a field goal, and this could be an overtime situation.

[CHEERING]

AW: And then when the big game comes on, second down.

BROADCASTER: At the top, it’s that…way! Chase makes the grip and picks up a lot more yardage.

AW: You’re like, uh-oh, like, you know, they got a chance to get another first down here, and then they got plenty of time and a time out. Like, you know, we got to be worried about them taking a shot at the end zone. And then when we made that stop on third down, uh, it’s like, oh man, it’s fourth down at one. Like, what are they going to do?

[MUSIC]

DG: Andrew’s stomach is in knots, and then he sees defensive tackle Aaron Donald get a hold of Bengals QB Joe Burrow.

BROADCASTER: Burrow trying to keep it going, gets spun down, gets it away, and incomplete.

AW: When Aaron Donald gets a hold of him, I can remember almost just kind of like blacked out for a second because I was literally just like, all right, wait a minute, the ball hit the ground.

BROADCASTER: The Rams now running down to celebrate with a defensive play.

DG: The football is literally on the ground. This is exactly what Andrew wanted to see, but he can’t let himself believe it.

AW: What all penalties and situations could happen in the game, where somehow it’s either first down for them, or it’s not our ball? Like, I’m trying to go through every scenario, like did somebody take a helmet off? Did, is there too many people in the field? Like, because I knew at that moment, all right, it’s our ball, we kneel it out, the game’s over now.

DG: But it was like too good to be true? You couldn’t, you couldn’t even….

AW: Too good to be true, so I didn’t want it to be true, and I didn’t want to accept it. Because I was like, all right, so I’m like looking around the field, like, alright, what did somebody push somebody? Is it, would that be a dead ball? If I waited, would it be a dead ball? It’d still be our ball. Like I’m rationalizing all the penalties I can think of, like all this, the pure vet mode, right? Just everything that maybe the young guys aren’t thinking about.

DG: Don’t celebrate too soon, don’t celebrate too soon.

AW: Yeah, and then it’s like, wait, no they’re telling us to come out there. Everything’s fine. And it’s like, I could barely like, where’s my helmet, where’s my helmet? You know, and then you run out there, and you’re like, (Laughs) is this real? Like, are we about to kneel it and win a Super Bowl? It’s just a crazy feeling.

BROADCASTER: But the Rams were built to win the Super Bowl, and they have sealed the deal.

DG: The Bengals lose possession with 46 seconds left. All the Rams need to do now is take a knee and end the game. It’s victory formation.

AW: To walk in that huddle after the last play on the defensive stand and know that we have an opportunity here to kneel it out and win the Super Bowl. The first thing I thought really in the image that comes to mind for me, and if you said all your senses in that moment, is looking around the huddle and seeing eyes welling up.

[MUSIC]

AW: You know, just a joy, a relief, a sigh of pressure going out just across the faces of all the men I’m looking at. And I can remember Matthew Stafford starts to say, you know, take a knee on one, you know. And I could remember looking in his eyes, he’s looking at mine, and his eyes are starting to well up with water. And I can just remember what an insane feeling that was of just emotion. It was almost like, you know, can you control enough emotion to take these three steps up to the line of scrimmage, put yourself in a stance, and just sit there for a second, you know, while we snap this football.

DG: He probably practiced that, but it’s nothing like….

AW: I mean, you do it all the time when you win a game, right? But when you win that game, it’s, man, it was not going to be hard on you. It’s just, oh, man. I don’t want to fall down because I’m just like so much emotions going through me right now. You know, it is like playing your first snap of football ever. There’s so much emotion and adrenaline just going through your body.

DG: When the Rams secured their Super Bowl victory, the first thing Andrew did was look up to find his family in the stands.

AW: I run to the sideline to look up at where my family was sitting, and I’m in Michael’s standing there looking at me. It almost makes me cry right now. He’s flexing both his arms and I just look at him and I flex mine back at him

DG: Oh my god.

AW: Most insane moment ever, and it’s not just…

DG: And not crying this time, probably?

AW: I got chills just saying it.

DG: I’m sure you did.

AW: It’s like looking at him him looking at me, and it’s like dude, you know what? Two years ago, we did this knowing that all we had to do is stay positive and just don’t let this get us down, and we’re back here, and both of us now, we can both cry, and we can both be happy at the same time.

DG: That’s amazing.

More conversation with Andrew Whitworth is coming up next on Sports in America.

Welcome back to Sports in America, I’m David Greene. When Andrew Whitworth finally won the Super Bowl at the end of his career, it reminded him of the last time he made an appearance in the big game, when he lost to the Patriots a few years earlier.

So that Super Bowl loss in 2018, I mean, did you think you might be done? Like, if you had won the Super Bowl and didn’t have that mixed emotion moment with your son, would you have hung it up then?

AW: I don’t think so. I think the tough part that really made it even more where I was able to control myself and do that with my son and have this special moment. And then after the game, really kind of be, I mean, I really didn’t get that upset. Obviously, you’re crushed, but like just kind of more consoling my family and my wife. I mean, I think she always says all the time, there was not a single ounce of her body that thought we would in any way lose that game. Like we just thought it was gonna happen. And so it was more just kind of being there for a body hugging, just listening, and that kind of thing. And so it was almost like I was so fired up to prove that I’m not done once we lost that game, that I didn’t have really emotions about losing the Super Bowl. I was more like all these people all week long for the Super Bowl, every media tour, everything that we did that week, where you do all this insane amount of media for the Super Bowl. Every single thing was like, “Is this your last game?” “This is your last game.” This in reports would say like, “Going into probably your last game,” “Going into what will probably be your last game,” you know, I felt like, like I’m sure Tom Brady gets all the time, every season, it’s like, I’m not saying anything, you guys are saying this, like I haven’t said one word to anybody about anything, but you, as a media, keep asking me this question in a way, like, you’re just saying I’m done. And so it was almost like, I went through that whole week that way, and I was like, you know what, like. I was thinking through the week, like, I don’t feel that way. Like, these people keep putting this in my head, like I’m done but I don’t feel that way.

DG: We’re talking about 2018 now?

AW: Yeah, 2018\. And so I still felt great. And so when we lose the game, and I was like, you know what? I’m really sad that we lost. I really expected us to win. I’m upset that we lost, but I’m okay. And I’m going to keep playing this game because I love the game of football.

DG: What do you remember telling your son, like when you actually got to talk to him after that loss to the Patriots?

AW: What’s cool with Michael is he’s a very intelligent kid when it comes to emotional intelligence. He’s really smart. He can feel rooms, he can feel people. He kind of, he remembers little things you give him. And so I always talk to him about, you know, the old Rocky quote, right? About like, you know, “It’s not how hard you get hit, it’s how hard you can get hit and keep getting up and keep moving forward.” And so we say that all the time. So he tells that to people all the times that and I laugh. I hear him tell his buddies that, or something will happen, or they’ll see some situation, and he’ll be like, “Hey dad, you know what it is, man. It’s not about how hard you get hit. It’s how hard can get hit and still get up, right?” And it’s like, “Yeah, buddy, you’re right, man.” And so he’s definitely got that in him. He loves the game of football. He’s playing it now. He’s got a special tenacity about him. And so that’s more of what we talked about. It’s just, hey, buddy, there’s gonna be plenty of times in life, you know, which I think I’m so grateful for the game of football for so many reasons. But one of them is, I think that the game of football, there are so many things you can relate it to your life, and really, if you can operate in a way that you operate at work in life, you can have a chance to really have success and be in a much better situation in life than you think, and so. I get to relay all those messages with him; we talk about that kind of stuff all the time.

DG: The media was wrong about that 2018 Super Bowl being Andrew’s last game. He stuck it out for three more seasons with the Rams when he finally got his ring. He retired after the 2021 season as the oldest tackle to win a Super Bowl. And possibly the craziest part about this game, Andrew’s one and only Super Bowl title, is that it was against the Bengals, the first NFL team to have faith in him as an athlete.

Was it tough to beat the team that drafted you? I mean, your ties to Cincinnati were so strong that organization has wanted a championship so badly, like how, do you wish you were playing a different opponent in that game and not taking down a team that meant so much to you for so long?

[MUSIC]

AW: Yeah, I think those feelings and emotions went through my head. I mean, they really did, you know, I’d be lying if I said they didn’t. I probably not necessarily the game week, but when you have the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, the first week in my mind, it was like, this is crazy. There’s so many people in Cincinnati, you know, started with Mike Brown, and, you know, and the ownership and people who still work there in the city that I care about, that I know how much the Bengals mean to them. That I’m like, gosh, it kills me that this is how it has to happen. Like, not that I want them to win, but that I have to try to beat them to keep them from getting something that I would love for them to have the opportunity to get. Joe Burrow, someone I love and adore him, man. I think he’s a special kid, special young man, and he’s gonna be a good football player for a long time, and we’ve developed a relationship, and so just thinking about that, like, man, how special I think of him. And it’s the same thing about my team. I used to tell people like winning the Super Bowl wasn’t something where, like, all of a sudden, I think highly of people around me in the Rams organization. To me, it was a confirmation of the people that I believe in and a confirmation of what I think is right. And playing Joe and some of those guys in that organization and Zach Taylor and some of them, it was like man, I believe in them too, and their confirmation of what I think’s right and how you should go about your business and do your things. So it’s tough to think about this is how it has to happen. Like, I have to beat them to do this, but it also made it really special because to me, in my mind, it was my last game in the NFL. What cooler scenario than the two places that weren’t winning programs before you got there and while you were there, not only did you win, it ended up that in both places you won, in both places, you won division championships, in both places I went to Pro Bowls, was an All-Pro, both those teams are now in the Super Bowl.

DG: And you knew this was it, you had decided you were done after this game?

AW: Yeah, I knew I was done.

DG: So you knew you were either gonna be done losing to a team that meant the world to you for a long time or that you were gonna be a Super Bowl champ, one of the other?

AW: Exactly. And so to me, what scenario could be sweeter than that moment?

DG: You were micced up for a lot of Super Bowl, and your matchup with Trey Henriksen, the defensive end for the Bengals, sounded, I mean, the trash talking, the kind of jabbing at each other. What is, what is that like? I mean, what does your workplace like as an offensive lineman? It’s such a unique space.

AW: It really is. It’s crazy. I get asked all the time, like who the biggest trash talkers are, and like all those type things when you played the game. And what’s really strange is upfront, and I don’t know if it’s just because sometimes in your position, there’s so much, you know, physical altercation as far as just all the physicality it takes, and you’re exhausted, and every play is kind of going after each other, but there’s not really that much chatter. You know, and that’s what was unique about playing Trey, is I had heard that he was a big like talker, like he loved to trash talk, he loved to talk the whole time. And I just had not played many people that ever speak. I mean, really.

DG: Really?

AW: Really.

DG: So you’re going up against the same person for 60 minutes, like literally at war every play, and you just sort of don’t say much to each other?

AW: No, I mean, you might get a little line like, “Oh, you held me there,” or, you know, “Let me go” or something like that. But you don’t get a lot of, like, Chandler Jones, there’s no trash talk. Terrell Suggs, James Harrison over the years. I mean Dwayne Freeney, even as good as he was, if anybody could trash-talk, no trash talk. Like none of those guys, I always say this, the talking starts the further you get away from the football. Because the guys who are on the edges that are running around, covering each other, almost like I say this, so I play pickup basketball, talk a lot of smack, right? But I’m not really hitting anybody. You know, I’m kinda, every now and then it’s physical, but you’re playing D, you’re talking smack, you’ve got the basketball in your hand, you’re talkin’ smack. You’re kinda moving around and, you know, a little chatter. When you’re down in the trenches, you’re getting hit in the mouth every play. And you are crunching bones and ligaments and muscles and everything else with everything you got. And so there’s not a lot of time to talk and a lot of time to really run your mouth about playing football. Because inevitably, you show me the trash talkers, I’ll show you guys that have either had, especially as an O-Lineman, big whiffs, where they flat out whiff when they block people, or in the run game, in the pass game, they’re letting huge sack fumbles, that kind of stuff, because…

DG: Because you’re playing, spending too much time thinking about how to trash talk?

AW: You’re talking about, well, you’re using your emotions to play. And to me, when you’re playing offensive line, you can run block with emotion. You can’t pass protect with emotion, and so to me, I just didn’t; there was no need to trash talk. Now, if somebody talked, I love to talk, so I would talk back, but not many people ever really ran their mouth much. Plus, I’m not an idiot, like my job is a living is, what I do for a living. It’s his job to get to the quarterback, right? It’s my job not to let people get to the quarterback and not let them get to the running back. Why would I wanna fire him up or get him excited to try to beat me? I did the opposite. “Hey man, you look great today. That uniform looks awesome on you.”

DG: (Laughs) Really? Would you say stuff like that?

AW: Yeah! “Your muscles look awesome. You look jacked up to get a little pump in before the game.” Like, you know…

DG: I’m really intimidated by you.

AW: You know, just golly man. I’m, man, please just let me make it today, man. I’m old. Like the last five, six years of my career, I like, “Dude, I’m old man. You don’t want to beat me up like that. Man, people, that’s embarrassing, beat some old guy up on TV.” You know?

DG: That’s incredible.

AW: So my, my smack talk was more like, “Hey, be kind to me.” You know I’m going to be as nice as I can be because that’s what I need to do to get them to relax. And then if they got, if they relax. Then, hey, it’s not my job to get to the quarterback. It’s theirs.

DG: Of course, this sport isn’t all fun and games, especially for athletes at the highest level. Football has gotten a reputation as one of the most dangerous sports you can play, but it’s not something that has ever scared Andrew off.

So you talked about the physicality, and I mean, you know, your 16 seasons, increasingly, people have looked at football as a dangerous sport. I mean, with the risk of brain injury and just the brutality on your body. Are you worried that there might be just hidden damage that, you know, in your brain, that you’re gonna start seeing the signs of it at some point, given just all those years and all those hits?

AW: I mean, I think you always know that’s a possibility. I think what’s been unique to me, you know, playing with this newer generation, I think the mentality’s changed a little bit. Now, obviously, guys who played before us years and years before us. Unfortunately, I think that spring football, training camp football, you know, just day in, day out football, they got beat up a lot in practices and in preparation for games, much less just the games. So their mentality, you know, they went through a lot of stuff. They probably just didn’t have to, well, for sure didn’t have to go through and didn’t need to, to play the game. But for me, it’s like, I think this age of player understands we know exactly what we sign up for. And I know the risks and I know what’s possible.

DG: So you’re not sitting there having conversations with your wife, being like CTE is a thing, like this might crop up in my life?

AW: I think our conversation is, we both know it’s a thing. We both know we need to be proactive about it if there’s something going on or if there are signs. But, at the same time, we both know I love playing this game. You support me playing this game, you’re all for it. And so Melissa and I know that if it’s a part of what happens, it happens. But I got the opportunity to do something I love, to help be a part of other people that I played with, people in organizations that I worked with, hopefully making, you know, life a little better and a little more fun. And we enjoyed being, you know, teammates and you know working in the same building, whether they played football or not, and I had a lot of amazing experiences that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

DG: Do you want your, you said one of your sons loves football, right?

AW: Mhm.

DG: Do you want him to play?

AW: If he wants to play? I mean, he will understand the risk, the rewards, and all the above. And if anybody does, it’ll be him. Cause he’s watched it, you know, and I think one of the coolest things that I would say for my kids has been one of things I did during COVID was I convinced my wife that there’s no need for In California, for you to have cars in the garage, so let’s take them out. And I don’t know what our things are gonna look like when COVID first started for training and facilities are starting to close, starting to hear the league’s gonna shut down, going on campus to our training facilities with the Rams and across the league. So I decide, you know what? We’re gonna build a weight room.

[MUSIC]

AW: And so I built a full-fledged, literally, if you went to a really nice training gym for athletes. I’ve got everything you can imagine.

DG: I’m going to cancel my gym membership and start coming to your house, if that’s okay.

AW: Any time, come on! It’s painted. everything. It looks literally like a training facility, and I’ve had the O-line for probably the last two and a half years in there. We train.

DG: Coming over to your house?

AW: We training in the off seasons. We train in season on Tuesdays and our off day. We do some stuff.

DG: They’re still coming, even though you’re retired?

AW: Yeah, they still come, still train with my trainer, Ryan Sorensen. And so we turned it into a training facility. And then there’s been other athletes that my trainer, Ryan Sorentsen, trains, Christian Yelich and different baseball players, and a couple other folks, just actors, different things, and so it’s been really neat. The coolest part for me, though, for my kids, deciding what they think about football has been my kids, you know, it’s one thing that your kids get to come to a football game, and they get to watch the fans and all that, right? But most facilities don’t allow kids for practices. Now, maybe if your kids old enough to be a ball boy, that’d be about it. My kids got to watch the part that nobody ever sees.

DG: The Rams’ offensive line training in their garage.

AW: They got to watch every morning those guys getting after it, pushing each other, failing, you know, missing a push-up set with chains on their back, and all the guys giving them crap and then retrying it and then trying it again to see if they could just get off the ground because their arms are dead. You know, the back squatting, pulling sleds, like my boys got to sit in there and watch that and decide, do I want that life? Do I want a piece of that action? Or you know what? I don’t know if that’s me.

DG: Have they decided?

AW: And one of them has decided he wants that for sure. The other one’s a really hard worker.

DG: This is the son that was staring up at the stands?

AW: Yeah, that’s Michael.

DG: That’s Michael? Okay.

AW: Yeah. Michael Lee. And so he, he wants it. So he’s playing, and we’ll see who knows as long as he has fun. I don’t care what happens, and then Drew, my other son, you know, right now, I think it’s just, he’s a really hard worker. Loves to work out and stuff, but he’s more obsessed, he loves baseball and basketball. It’s kind of his sports. I don’t know that he really has figured out what he would want to play in football. Michael has a clear picture. Like I want to be defensive end.

DG: Defensive end? He doesn’t want to follow in dad’s footsteps?

AW: He loves T.J. Watt and Vaughn Miller and Khalil Mack, and the Bosa brothers. He just, he loves all that stuff.

DG: He wants to annihilate the people who play your position basically. (Laughs)

AW: That’s it. It’s probably just him wanting to face me one day. It looks, sounds like, it sounds like when he turns 18, I’m going to be in for a fight, but no, it’s, you know, he’s, he’s got a great demeanor, and he loves the game. And so it’s cool that he’s gotten to sit in there and watch. So there’s no excuses. I, you, know it’s I’ve seen the work it would take if I want to do that. And he’s getting a chance to see it. I think that the game of football there’s so many things you can relate it to your life. And really, if you can operate in a way that you operate at work in life you can have a chance to really have success and be in a much better situation in life than you think, and so i get to relay a lot of those messages with him. We talk about that kind of stuff all the time

DG: What’s an example of that that you think football can relate to lessons in life?

AW: Well, I think I mean the first one is I say this all the time when you start talking about teamwork and the word teamwork, and what do people really mean. First and foremost well I think it begins you know you can relate it to everything that’s going on in this country in the last couple years with an awareness to social injustices and obviously it’s been going on for much longer than that but there’s been this new awakening of an awareness about it and it’s like what better example is there than a locker room of 60 men that come from literally every kind of background you could ever imagine.

[MUSIC]

AW: Different racial backgrounds, different systemic backgrounds, economic place, countries, states, you name it. There’s a locker room that’s literally made up of 60 guys who have come from complete different places. At one point in life, the game of football puts you on your knees, had to overcome struggles to get to where they’re at. And then at one point in life, been on top of the world because they were the top guy in college or the top guy at their team that they came from to get to the NFL, so they have experienced ups and downs and you find a way to have one common goal and learn to accept each other and learn, to be there for one another and support one another. And maybe you don’t all believe the same. Maybe you don’t all think that every single day, you know what every policy, everything is the same, but it’s about the goal we chase, and is it about what’s best for all of us, not what’s for us individually? And you find ways to gel, accept, love, but still have your differences. To me, that’s what teamwork starts with: is an ability to have a team that believes, cares, and loves each other. There’s plenty of knuckleheads in a locker room. There’s plenty of guys that I’m like, “Dude, your life makes no sense to me. Like, I do not get it. But I love you and I will fight my butt off for you every single day.” And that to me is one of the greatest examples that I think young kids, people in general, I mean people across this world could understand, is that you don’t always have to necessarily agree with every single person to care about them and to love them. I teach my kids this all the time. You love people because you love them, not because of the situation, not because of circumstance, not because it’s ideal for you, not because you can get something out of it. You start off from a place where you accept people, and you love people because that’s who you are and that’s how you choose to be. And that’s something that in my house, we make sure our kids hear daily.

DG: Football is what taught Andrew Whitworth to love the people around him and to work hard for them unconditionally. Coming up next on Sports in America, to really excel in the sport, Andrew had to learn to love himself.

DG: This is Sports in America. I’m David Greene, and let’s get right back into our conversation with LA Rams tackle and NFL legend, Andrew Whitworth.

Andrew, you wrote a piece for Beyond the Ultimate. This is a site where athletes share their faith, that there’s more to life than what happens on the field, and when it comes to success. And you talked about your early life, and it was titled, “I allowed guilt to control my life.” How did guilt control your life?

AW: I think I’ve always been that way. I think that I am one of those people that probably, from a mental health standpoint, always just assumes that everything I did is either done wrong or could have been said better or might have offended somebody or you might’ve hurt somebody’s feelings. And I just, I like to beat myself up over every single decision I make.

DG: Constant self-judgment?

AW: Constant, all the time, and Sean McVay and I’ve had this talk, like he, one of the reasons he was like so amazing for me is his relentless positivity and demeanor of how he talks so much life into people changed me dramatically from when I was in Cincinnati. I was not the leader; I was a leader in Cincinnati. I did a lot of great things. I was not as fully developed as I could have been because I always talked myself into you’re not worthy. You don’t deserve to be up there; you don’t deserve the opportunity to be a leader, because I would punish myself for every single mistake I make in my early life. And so it’s just, it’s one of those things that I’ve always dealt with. I’m that same way, going to bed at night, waking up in the morning. I’m always fighting myself that I’m not worthy to be there. And so, it’s part of though, of what’s driven me. And it’s a part of what Sean’s helped me with a lot, is like, he would love that that’s your demeanor and how much you’d like to compete, but it’d be like, he’d tell me, “Hey man, you played awesome on Sunday.” And I’d be like, “Yeah, the only player I remember is, do you remember the play where I messed up,” you know, and he’s just like, “Dude. You had one bad snap, like you had four bad snaps, whatever, like where they were just not like bad, just not exactly how you want to execute them. Like you’re playing a real game where people move, like things happen, but you played awesome. You responded in every one of those situations, had a great game.” And in my mind, I’m miserable, and I’m so mad at myself, and I can’t let those four plays go, or those two plays go. When I was in college, I would literally walk home after practices at night instead of like riding the bus or riding with the team guys, and like in one of them’s car, I would walk home in the dark because I’d be so upset with myself that I’d like, you don’t, you deserve to walk. You know, like that’s just how, it’s helped me be a great football player because I learned how to always self-judge myself, push myself, punish myself for mistakes. But sometimes in life, it can get a little dangerous because it makes you sometimes beat yourself up to a point where it’s not healthy.

But I think I’ve started to realize that a little bit of that is like just being a human being, and you don’t like have to live like you have to be perfect all the time, you know, and you can let some of that go. And I think for me, that’s why I always say this, you know, a lot of times when I post about emotional things on social media or things I’m thinking about, I’ll share that I get a lot of great feedback about I’ll always right at the end, like I’m in constant daily pursuit. And what I mean by that is every day is not gonna be great. Like I’m gonna have days where I’m gonna have a bad reaction or a bad comment or something I’m not gonna do right. But what I’ve finally figured out is it’s more important that after that bad moment, I’m willing to do exactly what I told my son to do. And that is tie my shoes on again, get back up, and keep chasing like who it is you wanna be.

DG: It’s really inspiring to hear. I mean, it can sound so cliche, but like I’ve talked to my own friends and therapists and family about, like self-judgment is just, it’s, when it’s part of you, it’s really hard to, to escape it, and it, and I mean to hear you, like this, you know, like 16 years in the NFL Super Bowl champion, all that stuff that you struggle with that constantly. I mean, it’s really, I don’t know. I don’t want to relish your struggles but it’s like comforting to know that there’s a that that’s a thing that a lot of us…

AW: Yeah, I really believe that. I mean, I believe that even in my faith in God is that like, too many people are out to just criticize and demean and take you down for everything you do. And the truth is, you know, the whole pursuit of wanting to be a better person and having faith is not that you don’t make mistakes. It’s not that you don’t mess up. Then nothing would make any sense if everybody was perfect. It’s that you’re willing to use your faith to say, you know what, I messed up, but my faith is that God forgives me and God’s got a better plan for me if I’ll just keep believing and keep moving forward. And I think that the real tough part is a lot of people that go down really dark roads or evil places is that they finally start to believe the things in their head that tell them, you know, what, “You’re not worthy or there’s no chance ever getting out of here.”

DG: This philosophy crystallized for Andrew a few years ago. In 2021, he was awarded the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award, which honors not just a player’s excellence on the field, but also their commitment to giving back.

AW: And it’s funny, not funny, I guess to me it’s funny now. I tell this story at the Walter Payton Man of the Year speech you know I have this opportunity to talk about this young man who you know comes up to me and tells me what I meant to him in his life and Derrick Barnes, who played for the Detroit Lions, comes up to me and is like, “Hey, I was the young kid that you played with in Cincinnati at the Boys and Girls Club every Tuesday when you were young.” And what I think people don’t understand, I didn’t have the time to elaborate in that moment, is I was in a dark place in my life. Like, I went to that Boys and Girls Club because one of the things that brought me joy was to sit around with these young kids and talk about life.

DG: You weren’t searching to just help them, you were searching to help yourself?

AW: Both, it was like those are my buddies, you know, we threw the football in the yard, we hung out, like all these things. And then here, 16 years later, Derrick Barnes, a rookie in the NFL, and he thinks, “Man, you changed my life. Like you helped me get to the NFL. Like I’ve always waited for this moment. I hoped you’d play long enough that I could walk out here and be like, I did it.” And to think about that was so, I remember like I literally, from the moment he told me that on the field to me going home in the car from the game, I don’t remember anything. Because it’s like, it almost like was such a, just a moment that I was just like, had no thoughts. Like, wow, like how is this possible?

DG: And that was after Ram’s Lions came or?

AW: Yeah, very end of the game and so it was just such an emotional crazy moment that I just really can’t remember exactly what I don’t even remember what I said to him after I think I gave him a hug and I can’t remember anything after that you know, but it’s so cool I’m so proud of him so happy for him like you know and it it’s fun to be a part of somebody else’s journey for sure but not only that, but him to be a part of mine. Like, I was going through a lot at that time in my life. And as much as I probably get credit for being this “good guy” because I’m going to the Boys and Girls Club, you know, those kids were doing as much for me in that moment as I was doing for them.

DG: Can you tie all of that to winning the Super Bowl? I mean, I just listened to you, and it’s almost like, it’s crazy to say this, but like a Super Bowl championship might pale in comparison to some of the kinds of moments you’re talking about, but how do you tie that together somehow?

AW: Well, that’s the tough part. The Super Bowl is amazing. And I think it’s honestly, like it’s something that, you know, all of us that were a part of that organization will share for a lifetime, and it’ll be a bond that is something special forever, but you know, I’ll be honest with you, it’s not probably even in the top five of things that’s like important to me or what I care about most in life.

DG: What’s the top five, would you say? Or the top few?

[MUSIC]

AW: I don’t know what the top five is, but people, in general is number one in the sense of, I think God gives me an opportunity to be here to make people have a better day, to spread some love and joy and happiness to people. The opportunity to be a husband and a father and all these type things. And so those things are the most important things in my life. And some of those moments that I’ve had with people, whether it be, you know, this year, helping a family during the season get their first ever, the first time they’ve ever owned a home, putting the down payment for them to be able to do that and move into their house. You know, hearing a struggling mother who’s been beaten and all these things, helping her get in her first home with her children, away from the situation she was in, and furnishing her house and…

DG: And this is part of the work that you and your wife are doing?

AW: Yeah, and so like those kinds of moments, I mean, a Super Bowl trophy is cool, but I thought Sean McVay, Matthew Stafford, Aaron Donald, all these people, Stan Kroenke, you name it, anybody with that Rams organization. They are Super Bowl champions in my mind before we won that Super Bowl championship. I think that championship was a confirmation of exactly what I thought about all the people in that organization and how much I believe in them. And I think their daily grind and who they are and the way they do things made them Super Bowl champions. So that doesn’t change anything to me about my opinion of all those people. But the opportunity in life to do something for someone who didn’t have that chance, who didn’t have a Super Bowl-type life going. That maybe you gave them a chance to believe themselves enough or to have enough positive things happen to them that they start to spread that to other people. To me, that’s a trophy that, man, I don’t know that it’s something I’m proud of as much as it’s something that the emotion and the power behind it is unbelievable.

DG: Well Andrew, real pleasure. Great meeting you.

AW: Thank you so much for letting me come on and just visit.

[THEME MUSIC]
DG: Next time on Sports in America…
ANNOUNCER: Eli Manning…Stays on his feet. Airs it out down the field.
TOM COUGHLIN: From where I am, I don’t know if the ball’s ever coming down. It’s up, up, up, up, come on, come on ball
DG: We are gearing up for the Super Bowl with legendary NFL coach Tom Coughlin
TC: That’smy favorite formation and out we went, you know, it’s called victory formation and places going nuts
DG: We’ll talk about that epic victory over the undefeated New England Patriots from Coughlin’s perspective, the old-school coaching tactics that brought the Giants to that point, and why caring for his wife in her final days meant more to this coach than anything that happened on the field.
TC: Well, I’m not saying that winning the Super Bowl wasn’t important, but what I am saying is that, as I said, there’s one ring that’s more important than the other one.
DG: That’s next time on Sports in America.
This is Sports in America. I’m your host, David Green.

Our executive producers are Joan Isabella and Tom Grahsler.

Our senior producer is Michael Olcott. Our producer is Michaela Windberg, and our associate producer is Bibiana Correa.

Our engineer is Mike Villers. Our talent booker is Brit Kahn. Our tile artwork was created by Bea Walling.

Sports in America is a production of WHYY in Philadelphia and is distributed by PRX. Some of our interviews were originally created by Religion of Sports, with special thanks to Adam Schlossman. You can find Sports in America on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, the iHeart radio app, you know, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Host: David Greene
Executive Producers: Joan Isabella, Tom Grahsler
Senior Producer: Michael Olcott
Producer: Michaela Winberg
Associate Producer: Bibiana Correa
Talent Booker: Britt Kahn
Engineer: Mike Villers
Tile Art: Bea Walling

Sports in America is a production of WHYY, distributed by PRX, and part of the NPR podcast network.

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