LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Rams must play without both of their starting safeties in their opening playoff game against the Arizona Cardinals on Monday night. Leading tackler Jordan Fuller is out for the season with a right ankle injury, and Taylor Rapp is in the NFL’s concussion protocol.
That means Eric Weddle quite likely will play meaningful snaps in a postseason game nearly two years after he retired to life as a suburban dad, chauffeuring his four children to school activities and coaching his son’s football team.
It’s a remarkable turn of events for a two-time All-Pro safety who voluntarily left the NFL behind with a year on his contract and never thought he had retired too early. Weddle and the Rams think he can make it work.
“It’s crazy to say this, but it’s as if I never left,” the 37-year-old Weddle said this week after he started practice for one of the most unlikely comebacks in recent NFL history. “When I’m out there going through plays and I’m seeing routes and moving, it’s inside me. It’s who you are. This is what I’ve done my whole life.”
Weddle hadn’t even thought about returning to the Rams — the team with which he spent the last of his 13 NFL seasons in 2019 — until he got desperate phone calls from Sean McVay and defensive coordinator Raheem Morris last Sunday night after Fuller and Rapp got hurt.
“I would regret it if I didn’t come and take this chance to help out the guys that I love, a coach that I love, in whatever role that is,” Weddle said. “How can I look (at) my team or my kids — or anyone, for that matter — if I didn’t follow through on what I preach?”
Wade Phillips was the Rams’ defensive coordinator for Weddle’s only season with the team, but Weddle has been friendly with Morris since he coached Weddle at the Senior Bowl. When Los Angeles realized its safety depth was in trouble, Morris hit up Weddle with a great opening line: “You’re not fat and out of shape, are you?”
“He said, ‘I’ll never be fat,’ ” Morris recalled with a smile. “I know he consistently works out, keeps himself in good shape. His brain is like no other. It’s like a coach.”
