Though there have been plenty of questions about the Los Angeles Rams’ offensive line this offseason, the tackle position hasn’t been an area of concern. Andrew Whitworth made it clear quickly after the season ended that he intended to play in 2021, and the Rams said publicly that they wanted to have him back.
The starter on the other side, Rob Havenstein, bounced back nicely last season with a strong performance at right tackle, thus solidifying his place as the starter again this year. When healthy, Havenstein is one of the better right tackles in football.
Heading into 2021, offensive tackle is a strength for the Rams, and it’s why Pro Football Focus is high on the Rams’ bookend blockers. PFF’s Anthony Treash ranked the top 32 offensive tackles in the NFL and both Whitworth and Havenstein made the cut.
Whitworth was ranked 15th, while Havenstein came in at No. 27. Treash wrote that Whitworth “was one of the five highest-graded tackles in the NFL through the first 10 weeks of the season” and didn’t allow a single sack in his first nine games before going down with a knee injury.
Whitworth is now 39 years old but has shown no signs of slowing down, which is remarkable. He’s playing as well as he was when he first joined the Rams in 2017, proving to be a highly valuable player for Los Angeles.
Havenstein hasn’t been as consistent, at least not in the last three years. He was great in 2018 but struggled in 2019 while battling injury, though it was encouraging to see him play at a high level last season.
Here’s what Treash wrote about Havenstein.
Havenstein is an interesting case study. He broke out in 2018, his fourth NFL season, as the league’s highest-graded right tackle, completely fell apart in a 2019 season the ended up being cut short due to injury (fourth-to-last among RTs in PFF grade) and then bounced back to his old form in 2020 (seventh among RTs in PFF grade). His lowest-graded game of 2020 would have been his third-highest-graded performance of 2019. The moral of the story is: Havenstein could be 10 spots higher or lower on this by the end of 2021.
Havenstein is signed through 2022, so if he plays well this season, he should be back for the final year of his contract. With cap hits of only $8.83 million in the next two years, Havenstein is a great value if he keeps playing the way he did in 2018 and 2020 instead of the 2019 version we saw of him.
Hopefully the Rams can get 17 games out of both of their tackles this season because their steady play will go a long way toward the entire offense playing at a high level.