Sports Illustrated Special - Super Bowl LVI Commemorative (2022)

2

AT

WHIT’S

END

THE TACKLE’S L.A. STORY

MIRRORS THE RISE OF THE RAMS

DURING THE MCVAY ERA

BY

GREG BISHOP

F

OR YEARS, when Andrew Whitworth

played for the Bengals, he told team-

mates he would retire. He insisted,

every fall, starting around 2011. This

is the year, he’d say, I think this is the

last one, before inevitably returning for

another season—and another season after that, and

another season after that. He’s 40 now, and he took

the field in Super Bowl LVI as the oldest player in the

NFL. He’s older, wiser and grayer. He’s closer (maybe,

must be) to the end.

With wisdom came perspective and a cosmic tie

that helped him fashion the perfect ending, should

W hitworth actually stop playing. He’s looking back now

at 2017, when, after 11 seasons in Cincinnati had netted

zero playoff victories, he needed change. It started with

a f light, an acceptance, a voicemail and the eventual

realization that one assumption he made that fateful

spring had been gloriously wrong.

Whitworth owes his 16th season—and, by extension,

his Super Bowl win—to that spring and the sequence

that unfolded. He had always expected to retire as a

Bengal until he didn’t. His exit wasn’t messy; that’s not

his style. But there was frustration. There were hard

2022 SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS

Photographs by John W. McDonough

GOING OUT ON TOP

In what may well be his final

season, Whitworth won the

Walter Payton Man of the Year

award and beat his former

team in the Super Bowl.

Banca do Antfer

Telegram: https://t.me/bancadoantfer

Issuhub: https://issuhub.com/user/book/

Issuhub: https://issuhub.com/user/book/