We’ve all sung our songs for Tom Brady and the impressive things he’s doing as a 44 year old, but we may have also overlooked Andrew Whitworth for the same reasons.
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If you’ve read anything about Brady’s accolades, his prolific season this year, or how he’s leading the Buccaneers in their title defense, then the first thing that you’ve probably read is how Brady is doing all this at the ripe young age of 44.
You almost can’t escape it. Brady’s age has to come up in any conversation people have about him. The phrase, ‘the fact that Brady is doing all this at 44 years old’, has probably been repeated over 100,000 times now. Of course, this isn’t to diminish Brady’s performance at his age. Of course, it’s impressive. However, if we’re giving Brady props, then Andrew Whitworth should receive equal treatment.
Andrew Whitworth may deserve more praise than Tom Brady
Whitworth plays tackle for the Rams, and he’s 40 years old. That sentence itself should be impressing enough on its own without getting into his stats. Tackle is no easy position to play and certainly not as a 40 year old, yet Whitworth continues to defy Father Time as he’s the only tackle to play that late into his career.
Whitworth is the only other active 40 year old player in the league aside from Tom Brady, yet you rarely hear his name compared to the Bucs QB. Not only is Whitworth still playing at 40 years old, he’s also dominating.
Pro Football Focus graded Whitworth as the best pass blocker among tackles, placed him top five in pressures allowed, and ranked him in the top five in blown block rates.
Whitworth did all this coming off a season in which he tore his MCL, an injury that he thought meant the end of his career. However, he would miss only seven games and returned to help the Rams in the playoffs. “Pretty wild to be able to come back as fast as I was,” he said after “Even in those eight weeks, you thought that was it.”
NFL analyst and former Browns tackle Joe Thomas also noted how Whitworth’s play is more impressive at this point in his career than Brady’s because of the physical demand of his position. Whitworth has to be in there every play, mixing it up with some of the strongest and most physically gifted players in the NFL on the d-line.
This season itself he had to go up against the likes of Kahlil Mack, Von Miller, Chandler Jones (twice), and Nick Bosa (twice). Those are players normal tackles hope to never matchup against, never mind a 40 year attempting to take them on. However, Whitworth did it, and he did it well.
“Whitworth is doing this, and he’s getting physically beaten down every single week,” says Thomas. “It’s more amazing what he’s doing out there than it is with Brady because of the physical nature of his position.”
Moral of the story, next time you think of Tom Brady and how crazy it is that he’s playing at 44 years old, make sure you remember that Andrew Whitworth is doing basically the same thing, if not more.
