'You can't make this up': How 37-year-old Eric Weddle went from retired to expected Super Bowl starter

 

Los Angeles Rams All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey saw the text pop up on his phone the afternoon of Tuesday, Jan. 11.

“Call me,” Ramsey’s former teammate, 13-year NFL safety Eric Weddle, had messaged.

Ramsey glanced nervously at what was now three Weddle messages he hadn’t returned. Did a lecture await, another reminder of which tight end route he’d covered too leniently or which technique he hadn’t executed to standard?

“It was not what I was expecting,” Ramsey said. “It was like, ‘Oh, that’s what you want to talk about? Let’s go.’”

Ramsey was among a Southern California contingent whom the 37-year-old Weddle surprised that Tuesday afternoon when the Rams asked Weddle, who played for them in 2019 before retiring, to return to help chase a Super Bowl run. Rams safety Taylor Rapp had suffered a concussion; fellow safety Jordan Fuller had sustained a season-ending ankle injury in the regular-season finale. The Rams sought depth from a player whose fitness and capacity for playbook mastery were sufficient to suit up six days later.

Or as Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris had posed the question: “You’re not fat and out of shape, are you?”

Three games, 131 snaps and 13 tackles, including a key fourth-quarter tackle for loss later, Weddle has shown the Rams and NFL he isn’t. He’s helped Ramsey lead the Los Angeles defense to a Super Bowl berth, contagious energy and sharp film study lifting his own play — and that of the entire Rams defensive unit.

Family, friends and teammates describe Weddle’s improbable unretirement as simultaneously a dream they can’t believe and a stars-aligning-perfectly moment that’s utterly expected from the physically and mentally toughest person they know. As the biggest stage awaits, Weddle is leaning in.

“I’m like a kid in a candy store,” he said. “You can’t make this up.”

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