TNF’s Andrew Whitworth Talks Rams/Stafford, Bengals/Burrow & More with Rich

Andrew Whitworth has been on the receiving end of the message a franchise sends when it spends a high draft pick at your position. He had things to say about both teams sending one this offseason.

Whitworth joined Rich on Wednesday to talk through a pair of moves that have rewired the storylines for two of his old organizations. The Cincinnati Bengals traded the 10th overall pick to the Giants for Dexter Lawrence. The Los Angeles Rams used a first-rounder on quarterback Ty Simpson behind Matthew Stafford. Two trades, same vocabulary if you read them right.

"Big swing, Rich. Big swing," Whitworth said of the Bengals deal. "Let's go, baby."

The read on Cincinnati was the more direct of the two. The franchise has historically been the team that hopes the draft works out. Whitworth said the trade breaks that pattern in a way the front office wanted everyone in the building to feel.

"As an organization up top from the very top in the front office, we are all in on Joe Burrow and Zack Taylor in this era of Cincinnati football," he said. "Your team needs that sometimes. All the players, hey, we got no excuses. Let's just go out and play elite football because we can't sit here and say the organization's not bought in."

Lawrence, in Whitworth's analysis, addresses the actual problem with Bengals football. The offense has not been the issue. The defense, when it has been mediocre, has gotten Cincinnati to a Super Bowl and back to an AFC Championship. When it has been horrific, the season has fallen apart. A double-team-wrecking interior disruptor playing next to two young second-year linebackers, he argued, is the lever they needed to pull.

Then came the Rams pick, and the question Rich was waiting to ask. Did the Simpson selection surprise him?

"I think no," Whitworth said. He laid out the Rams' history of building around quarterbacks while continuing to acquire talent, including how the team handled Jared Goff's early years. The model is repeatable. At some point you need to have the next guy in the building so you do not have to mortgage future first-round picks to get one.

The interesting part was when Whitworth got asked to speak for Stafford. He spoke for himself instead.

In 2015, Whitworth had asked the Bengals for an extension. He did not get an answer. He dared the team in the media to draft a left tackle. Cincinnati drafted two. First round and second round, back-to-back, the first time in NFL history.

"Those guys watched me play for seven more years," he said. "Matthew Stafford will play the game of football in the NFL for as long as Matthew Stafford wants to. Anybody would be absolutely insane to not want this guy to be your quarterback. And I think the Rams feel the exact same way."

Whitworth was careful to hold two ideas at once. The pick does not change Stafford's status. The pick is also allowed to bother him.

"Was I pissed off at the Cincinnati Bengals for drafting those guys? I was," Whitworth said. He still had the rookies over to his house. He still mentored them. The mentorship and the frustration coexisted. "We can disagree on whether or not it should have been done and we can commit to go try to win a Super Bowl together because that's what we signed up to do in the first place."

The Super Bowl returns to SoFi Stadium this year. Whitworth pointed that out unprompted.

"This too shall pass," he said. "Let's go win a Super Bowl, baby."