While the Cincinnati Bengals spiral out of control, Andrew Whitworth’s Los Angeles Rams are 11-1 and look like a Super Bowl contender.

Whitworth ended up with the Rams in 2017 after the Bengals failed to retain him in free agency. And while speculation has hinted at the Bengals refusing to pay a 35-year-old tackle well on a three-year deal like the Rams did, we never had official confirmation.

Until now.

Whitworth himself said on the Rams Revealed podcast that the Bengals weren’t close to “three or four” other offers:

“For me honestly I had three or four offers that were all really right the same. The only real offer for me, unfortunately, that wasn’t really equivalent to the others was the team I was with, the Cincinnati Bengals, were really the only team that was the outlier in the offers I received. So I knew that that probably meant for me, really the situation I was under, and the excitement to try and go win, really not having much of a commitment from them, felt like I was going to have to go somewhere.”

It’s unfortunate the Bengals were willing to let Whitworth walk over cash, as he’s been a key part of the Rams’ turnaround and Super Bowl bid, regardless of age.

Instead, the Bengals pocketed the money and used it elsewhere while predictably failing with the Cedric Ogbuehi experiment. The Bengals have since sort of admitted the mistake via the desperation trade for Cordy Glenn.

As perplexing as it is the Bengals weren’t willing to pay top dollar for the most important position on the offensive line, it’s at least nice to see Whitworth is finding success outside of the organization.

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