Wentworth the pain for ageless Rams tackle

LIFE begins at 40 for a football player only if you have the will to score a Spartan victory over yourself, because only then do you have a fighting chance against Father Time. Tom Brady won’t be playing in Super Bowl LVI. But Andrew Whitworth will be. And it is Whitworth, age 40, who now will be carrying the banner for the Life Begins at 40 crowd.

“Yeah it’s wild to think there’s only two of us at this time . ... It’s unbelievable, to even think I’d be in the conversation with somebody like that, right? It just blows my mind,” Whitworth told The

Post.

“I was filling something out the other day for one of our end-of-the-year medical things, and in the sheet it said 40 years old, and I don’t why but I was like, ‘What?’ And then I realized like, ‘Actually I am 40. Damn.’ It still hasn’t resonated with me sometimes.”

It undoubtedly resonates with Brady, with George Foreman — Andrew Whitworth plays left tackle for Sean McVay, the 36-yearold head coach of the Rams. Whitworth will be chasing that elusive first Super Bowl ring against Zac Taylor, the 38-year-old coach of the Bengals, the team for which he played 11 seasons.

“I guess the hardest part really playing at my age is seems like in the last five years there’s always like some injury that I get that maybe when I was younger I either didn’t get it or I could get over it really fast,” Whitworth said. “And now, it’s like, ‘Oh man, you’ve had surgery on this ankle, you’ve had surgery on this knee, you’ve got this knee, your MCL’s loose, or if your PCL’s torn on this knee, messed up this shoulder, you tore this elbow. So it’s like you start having little things and you’re like, ‘Crap. All the different injuries are kinda like bugging me right now.’”

If you want to be Forever Young, be forever in love with the game.

“Yeah you gotta love the game at a really high level to play at my age, there’s no doubt about that,” Whitworth said. “I’m not gonna be the type of guy that’s gonna sit out here and go, ‘Well I’m gonna go compare myself, I’m better than this guy and that guy,’ but I will say this — you’d be hard-pressed to find somebody that has the passion and the want-to because I see guys sit out every Sunday for things much less than I would ever even imagine. These past couple of years I’ve actually had to miss a couple of games here or there and it’s been like the first time in my career that’s happened. It blows my mind that it’s possible. That’s the tough part, you gotta love the game to play it at my age every week.

“Sometimes that thing of like, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ has kinda been the mind game I’ve played on myself for a really, really long time. And it drives me to like seize the moment, basically, Like, ‘Hey, this might be your last game ever, this is your last time to ever play.’ I’ve constantly done that to myself for probably seven, eight years.’ And it’s like eventually that’s gonna take its toll, and it really is gonna be the last one.”

He was a second-round pick out of LSU in 2006 who never imagined this kind of career. Who could? Whitworth was Pro Football Focus’ fifth-highest graded tackle this season. It thrills him that so many rival coaches and players tell him after games what an inspiration he has been to them and for them.

“You got lots of things that are your whys,” Whitworth said. “Obviously for me now it’s been really over the last probably four years, you’re entering territory every time you go out and play — every start, really. You’re entering territory of, ‘Nobody’s ever done this.’ And how many people have? There’s only two, there’s only three, there’s only four. You’re almost counting down the list of how many guys have started as many games as you at left tackle or in general on the offensive line, and how many guys at your age are still playing in general across the NFL?”

Now the Bengals stand between him and the Lombardi Trophy.

“What’s funny about it is it’s almost like less stressful to me because it’s kind of like, ‘Man, what a cool opportunity,’ a franchise that I poured my heart and soul into that I know a piece of me’s still there, in a city that I love so much,” Whitworth said. “For them to accomplish this and to be there, and for me to be there too, I couldn’t dream of a better scenario to get back to a Super Bowl. I’m just so excited for everybody.”