Andrew Whitworth praises Bengals for sending “good message” to Joe Burrow

Before being low-balled a contract offer and leaving for the Los Angeles Rams, Andrew Whitworth spent over half a decade protecting Andy Dalton and over a decade playing with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Having been with the team ever since being drafted in the second round of the 2006 NFL Draft. Whitworth left during the 2017 offseason and has yet to look back, but he has been watching the moves of his former team.

He build up a relationship with this city, one that’s still relevant to this day.

Having the ability to come back if he wanted to, the now 38-year-old did talk up his former team, heaping praise on what the Mike Brown-led team has been doing in preparation of drafting Joe Burrow.

“I think it’s a good message,” Whitworth said on The Herd with Colin Cowherd. “They know they’re about to pick a kid in Joe Burrow who’s special. Who seems to have a charisma and really just a swag about him to be a good football player. You hear him say all of the right things and you see the way his team rallied around him last year and seem to truly love him and thrive off him,”

Whitworth makes a good point.

While the team has mustered up enough talent in past offseason to bring hope or even make the playoffs, this time it is different. It’s not just Joe Burrow, although he certainly will help.

It’s Burrow combined with the highest-paid nose tackle in D.J. Reader and a franchise-tagged receiver in A.J. Green to go along with several other upgrades on both sides of the ball.

Over the last decade, the Bengals have been criticized for being cheap in free agency. They broke that pattern this season, and Whitworth thinks it should be notable to the potential No. 1 overall draft pick.