Rams left tackle Andrew Whitworth, currently the oldest active player in the NFL, is likely to retire. But one of the greatest athletes in the history of North American sports may change his mind.
Whitworth said on NFL Network that he thought retiring after winning his first Super Bowl would be the way to go out. But he talked to his neighbor Wayne Gretzky, who won four Stanley Cups, and was intrigued by Gretzky telling him that winning multiple championships is even better.
“I’ll never forget after we won the game, ‘The Great One’ Wayne Gretzky called me, cause I live out here near him in Sherwood,” Whitworth said. “He was like, ‘Hey Whit, there’s only one thing better than winning one, and that’s winning two.’ And I said, ‘You know what, I can’t argue with you.’ It’s gonna be tough. One way or another it’s gonna be a tough decision.”
Still, Whitworth, who was named the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year the day before the Super Bowl, sounds like a man who has done everything he wants to do in the game.
“I’m definitely leaning towards probably being done,” he said. “I think that that’s probably best for me at this time in my career. There’s obviously days I’m waking up right now that I don’t know if I want to do that. It’s battling that a little bit. I’ll come to a conclusion here soon to give the Rams a chance to make the moves they need to one way or another.”