Rams adjusting to life without left tackle Andrew Whitworth – NFL Nation

Andrew Whitworth was the left deal with for the Los Angeles Rams for 5 seasons, however one way or the other it felt like extra.

Whitworth joined the Rams in 2017, once they had been coming off a 4-12 season, enjoying within the growing older Los Angeles Coliseum and quarterbacked by Jared Goff. By time he retired earlier this month, the Rams had been Tremendous Bowl champions, enjoying in essentially the most fashionable of NFL stadiums at SoFi Stadium and quarterbacked by Matthew Stafford.

It will take the Rams a short while to get used to a world with out him.

“It is a new period of Rams offensive line,” heart Brian Allen stated. “It will be bizarre with out Whit there.”

The Rams have been grooming his alternative, Joe Noteboom — a third-round draft choose in 2018 — the previous 4 seasons. Noteboom has performed varied offensive line positions, began a complete of 17 regular-season video games and was not too long ago re-signed by the Rams to a three-year, $40 million contract with $25 million assured.

“The perfect half is figuring out the coaches have the arrogance in you to signal you again to a contract right here and put you in that spot,” Noteboom stated. “Nevertheless it’s additionally a problem. Being the man now comes with slightly extra accountability. It is motivating greater than ever.”

Noteboom stated his 4 seasons as Whitworth’s teammate weren’t wasted. He stated he discovered issues resembling work habits, making ready his physique for an extended season and food plan from the veteran deal with.

“It was an ideal scenario [to learn],” Noteboom stated. “There was no different man within the league I might reasonably have been behind for these 4 years. That provides me confidence going into it.”

Noteboom performed some at each deal with spots and left guard final season, his first with Stafford as his teammate.

“He is a plug-and-play participant for us,” Stafford stated. “Wherever we wanted him, he stepped in and performed at a excessive degree towards some actually high quality opponents. I am trying ahead to seeing his improvement on the left facet and seeing him do his factor for a bunch of years.”

Allen and Noteboom arrived the identical season as Rams draft picks. Allen stated Noteboom was “the left deal with in ready” over the previous 4 years at the same time as he moved across the offensive line.

“I feel that left deal with spot actually is the place he’ll shine essentially the most,” Allen stated. “I am pumped for him to have this chance to actually be the man. … He absorbed a lot knowledge and a lot stuff that Whit taught him over these 4 years.”

Allen additionally re-signed with the Rams this 12 months, on a three-year contract for $18 million, with $10 million assured.

“It was positively slightly extra tense than I assumed it was going to be … being my first time having gone by way of free company so I actually wasn’t positive what to anticipate or actually what I used to be getting myself into,” he stated. “However I needed to be again in L.A. and I am enthusiastic about how issues unfolded.

“I actually did not wish to depart not figuring out how a lot better I may very well be in our offense. That was positively one thing that was at the back of my thoughts that I didn’t wish to go someplace and be in a scenario the place I did not have somebody like Matt to work with … he’d be a tough individual to let know you had been leaving.”

Dropping Whitworth is not the one change coming to the Rams on offense. Additionally they traded extensive receiver Robert Woods to the Tennessee Titans for a sixth-round choose in 2023. However they added one other receiver, Allen Robinson II, in free company with a three-year, $46.5 million contact and re-signed Stafford to a four-year contract extension value $160 million.

The Rams may nonetheless re-sign extensive receiver Odell Beckham Jr., although he will not be obtainable early subsequent season after tearing his ACL within the Rams’ Tremendous Bowl LVI victory over the Cincinnati Bengals.