LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Eric Weddle has agreed to be the coach of a high school football team, six days after concluding a 14-season NFL career by helping the Los Angeles Rams to the victory in Super Bowl LVI.
Weddle will assist current Rancho Bernardo High School football coach Tristan McCoy for the 2022 season, then become the head coach of the San Diego County program in 2023.
McCoy has been the Broncos' coach for 11 seasons. He plans to remain on staff and support Weddle in 2023 and beyond, the team announced on its Facebook page Saturday.
Weddle initially retired from the NFL following the 2019 season, his first with the Rams, at age 35. With the Rams shorthanded at safety because of an ankle injury to Jordan Fuller and Taylor Rapp entering the concussion protocol, Weddle was signed to the practice squad Jan. 12, eight days after turning 37.
Weddle played 19 snaps in a 34-11 wild-card round victory over the Arizona Cardinals Jan. 17 and made four tackles and played 61 snaps in the 30-27 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a divisional round playoff game Jan. 23.
Weddle was the Rams' starting free safety in both the NFC championship game and Super Bowl LVI. He made a team-high nine tackles, including one for a loss, in the 20-17 victory over the San Francisco 49ers Jan. 30, playing all 51 snaps on defense.
Weddle made five tackles, playing all 61 snaps, despite tearing a pectoral muscle in the first quarter of the 23-20 victory over Cincinnati in Super Bowl LVI Sunday.
“Never in a million years did I think that I would be able to have this moment as a player because my career was done and for everything to have to had to happen, not just this season with Fuller and Rap going down, but over the last 15 years, certain things had to happen for me to be in this moment and to finish it off the way we did is really just something you hear out of a book or story,” Weddle said after Super Bowl LVI.
“A fiction fairytale that you only wish your name would be a part of it and lucky me, it's about me and I'm a world champ now.”
Weddle announced after Super Bowl LVI he was retiring again.
“I will go back to my daily life, pretty banged up right now, but hey it's well worth it, well worth the moment,” Weddle said.
Weddle was drafted by the San Diego Chargers in the second round of the 2007 NFL draft following a collegiate career at Utah where he was a consensus All-American as a senior in 2006, mainly playing cornerback.
Weddle and his wife, Chanel, his high school sweetheart at Alta Loma High School in Rancho Cucamonga in San Bernardino County, married in La Jolla in San Diego County, in July 2005, before his junior season at Utah. The couple have four children, Brooklyn Marie, Silver Jean, Gaige Leroy and Kamri Joe.