TNF’s Andrew Whitworth Talks Aaron Donald, Bengals, Bills & More with Rich

Andrew Whitworth has spent more time around Aaron Donald this summer than most people covering the Rams, and he arrived on the show with a verdict that lands somewhere between tease and confirmation.

"I don't think he's back yet," Whitworth told Rich. "But I think he's really close to being back."

The two ran a trenches camp together at the Rams facility in Woodland Hills, an offensive line and defensive line day for kids that doubled as Whitworth's first extended look at Donald in a while. His scouting report was four words long. "Guy looks in good shape."

Then came the hat. Donald posted himself on Instagram wearing new Rams headwear, which Rich read as something other than a product endorsement. Whitworth did not argue the point.

"He's playing the part, you know?" Whitworth said. "It's got to be, right?"

Sean McVay has been leaving his own breadcrumbs, saying there would not be news on that front until the team gets back to Woodland Hills, that some loose and temporary timelines exist, and that if there is an arrow, it is trending upwards.

Whitworth's most useful contribution was not the speculation. It was the explanation of what Donald has actually been doing, which has less to do with football than with pain tolerance.

"It's putting your body through the impacts," Whitworth said. "Your tissue doesn't just walk around ready for that. You got to prepare."

He framed the real question as whether the drive survived the time away. Whitworth said Donald has spent roughly the last month and a half training like a football player again, running the drills he used to run, finding out where he sits physically.

"You're going to have to fall in love with the pain again and waking up every day sore as hell, not being in the mood to do it, but still having the drive to go do it," Whitworth said. "And that happens long before just being in pads and hitting people."

On timing, he laid out something close to a calendar. Whitworth does not see this as a veteran easing in for a handful of snaps.

"AD is a rare human," he said. "I don't see any scenario, Rich, where this is AD just playing a few snaps a game. I just don't think he's wired that way." A player chasing significant snaps needs weeks to rebuild scar tissue, which points Whitworth toward the last week and a half of August for Donald to turn up on a practice field.

He expects that ramp to happen at the facility rather than in a camp setting, partly because the contract details still have to be sorted, and partly because nobody gains anything by dropping Donald into every training camp practice cold.

Whitworth also offered the best available evidence of why the Rams would bother. He once saw Donald rip a facemask clean off a helmet during a practice fight, bolts and all, leaving the other player standing there in a shell. "It feels like you got pantsed on the practice field," Whitworth said, "cuz you just feel exposed."

At 44, he was asked whether any signing could have pulled him back. "If I wasn't 44 years old with the team they have right now, I would love to find a way," Whitworth said. What he told Donald was simpler. "If I was your age, I'd be doing everything I could to play."

He is going to Australia with the Rams regardless, a trip Rich advised him against at Lake Tahoe. "I completely didn't listen to any of it," Whitworth said, cheerfully.

On the AFC, he planted his flag in Denver. "That team right there, Denver, is going to be the team in the AFC," Whitworth said, floating a Bills and Broncos championship game as the finish.

The Bengals are the team he is watching hardest, and the reason is the side of the ball that has failed them. Whitworth pointed to Ted Karras describing a defense that now looks like grown men across the huddle, night and day from what it felt like last year.

"If this defense can actually be a top half of the NFL, call it a top 20 even, defense, I think matched up with this offense, the Bengals are going to make some noise," he said.