Former All-Pro S Eric Weddle Talks Michigan QB Bryce Underwood & Rams w/ Rich

Eric Weddle has become an unlikely main character this week, and Rich got the 14-year veteran and six-time Pro Bowler on to talk through all of it, starting with his old team.

Weddle, who won a Super Bowl ring with the Rams, was not surprised by the Myles Garrett trade at all. It is exactly how Los Angeles operates, he said, identifying a player who can help both on the field and inside the building, then going all in. The Rams are one of the few organizations that chase a Super Bowl every single year, and as a former player, he loves that certainty.

He did not dismiss the cost. Jared Verse is a stud, Weddle said, but roster math is unsentimental. When a team has young players due big paydays soon, and it decides it will not pay Verse top dollar, then dealing him for the best defensive player in football makes sense. What Garrett brings, Weddle stressed, goes beyond sacks. His leadership, accountability and preparation will resonate through the building and rub off on the young Rams long after he eventually rides into the sunset, which is why the organization values that kind of trait.

Asked what makes Sean McVay special, Weddle pointed to a rare quality: McVay earns his players' respect and returns it, connecting without losing the ability to make hard calls. The job is lonely at the top, full of tough conversations like trading away a player he loved. Weddle and McVay bonded quickly and still talk monthly, two like-minded people who simply get each other.

The Stafford and Ty Simpson dynamic hit close to home. Weddle lived a version of it. When he signed with the Rams, McVay called him five picks before drafting Taylor Rapp to say they loved the kid and that he would learn from Weddle. Weddle was not threatened, because his philosophy is blunt: if he could not play anymore, he should not be playing. Stafford, he figures, feels the same. If Stafford is still going three or four years from now, that is the best case, because it means he is still great, the Rams are chasing more titles, and Simpson gets to sit and learn a position that is brutally hard to play.

The Aaron Donald question, the one consuming everyone, drew Weddle's honest skepticism. Physically, Donald could do it, Weddle said, calling him a specimen freak. The real barrier is mental, the daily grind of leading and preparing that he himself decided was no longer worth it. A midseason, part-time return would tempt any contender, but dropping the best player ever into a locker room is more complicated than it looks.

And then there was the take that lit the fuse. Weddle stood by his podcast comment that Michigan should not be surprised if its backup plays early, clarifying that he questions Bryce Underwood's accuracy and readiness, not his raw talent. Having toured nine schools with his son, he came away most impressed by Michigan in nearly every respect except the quarterback play, and he knows what championship quarterbacking looks like from a career spent trying to stop it. His message to Underwood was not a burial but a challenge: go prove me wrong.