ATLANTA — Andrew Whitworth shaves his head, but check the beard. There’s the gray hair.

The Los Angeles Rams left tackle is an anomaly. He’s the oldest lineman to start a game in the NFL this season, at 37 years old. Whitworth’s head coach, Sean McVay, is four years younger than him.

And Whitworth is still playing well at an age in which most offensive lineman have already called it quits. He didn’t make a Pro Bowl this season, as did each of the three previous seasons, but he was the No. 3 ranked offensive tackle in the NFL by Pro Football Focus. For all the talk about what Tom Brady is doing at age 41, Whitworth is a good story himself in his late 30s. Especially since it took until this season for him to finally win a playoff game. He lost his first seven playoff games, six with the Bengals and then last season with the Rams. But he’s in the Super Bowl now. It’s a good thing he stuck around this long.

Like Brady, Whitworth is getting retirement questions. If he knows the answer, he’s keeping it close.

Andrew Whitworth, who didn’t win a playoff game in his first 13 NFL seasons, finds himself in a Super Bowl with the Rams. (AP) More

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“I think if you talk to my teammates in Cincinnati, especially Clint Boling will tell you, I’ve been going to retire since he was a rookie [in 2011],” Whitworth said Tuesday, in preparation for Super Bowl LIII. “Every year I joke with the guys, ‘This is it.’ It helps me, in some ways, challenge myself. I’ve always said, this is my last year. Then the season ends and it’s ‘next year is going to be the last year.'”

There’s no question that Whitworth can still play, if he decides to return for a 14th NFL season. Which, considering his age and position, is incredible.

Andrew Whitworth’s secret to playing into his late 30s

There’s a reason only three offensive lineman who have reached their 35th birthday started an NFL game this season. Jason Peters of the Philadelphia Eagles is 36, Oakland Raiders tackle Donald Penn (who started four games) is 35.

It’s not a position that ages well, with violent collisions on every play.

Whitworth is a huge man, listed at 6-foot-7, 330 pounds, but he said keeping his weight under control is what has allowed him to stay productive this late into his career. He’s big, but he makes sure all of the pounds are worth it.

“It’s really the work I’ve done to be as lean as possible, and to really not carry anything I don’t need to carry,” Whitworth said. “To keep the weight up, but to transfer that weight into productive weight. At times you feel my age, and then at times I realize all the work has paid off.”

Some luck didn’t hurt either. He has been fairly healthy through his career, though credit his toughness too. He played through a high ankle sprain this season, and said he rolled his other ankle while the high ankle sprain was still healing. He still played all 16 games.

“I had a stretch there where it didn’t feel great, it was in my mind, it’s like ‘Oh man, getting through this season is going to be tough,'” Whitworth said. “Getting the playoff bye was massive, because it gave me an opportunity to be healthy again and feel great. I feel like I did before the season.”

The payoff was good for playing through the pain. After plenty of playoff disappointment, he found himself on the right side of a playoff game, then another to make the Super Bowl.

Whitworth enjoying Rams ride

Whitworth said it was great to finally win in the playoffs, but he has a good perspective on his career. He talked about how it’s not easy to win in the postseason because both teams are great and sometimes things don’t go as you’d hope. He rattles off some Bengals playoff losses and wishes they’d have run the ball or played defense better in some of them, but he doesn’t dwell too much on the many losses.

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