Back in September of 2023, Steve Avila felt overcome with nerves. The rookie left guard was about to make his NFL debut, and his anxiety was written all over his face.

Looking over at him, veteran Rams right tackle Rob Havenstein offered the kind of salt-of-the-earth wisdom that he specialized in.

“‘Hey man, it’s just football. You’re doing it your whole life,’ ” Avila recalled. “And taking a step back and actually thinking about what he said, I was like, ‘He’s freaking right.’ So that definitely calmed me down.”

It was one of countless moments in which Havenstein left his impact with a touch simultaneously deft and gruff on any player who walked through the Rams’ locker room — and especially the offensive line room — during his 11-year career.

But on Tuesday, Havenstein said that that career was coming to a close, announcing his retirement from the NFL with a post on Instagram.

“What a ride it’s been! I can look back on my career and smile knowing I have given everything I had and more to the game I love,” Havenstein wrote. “Thank you to all my teammates, coaches, and fans who have supported me and helped me over these past 11 years. I have had the time of my life with the Los Angeles Rams.”

A lifelong Ram since he was a second-round draft pick out of Wisconsin in 2015, Havenstein has been one of the franchise’s bridges between eras.

He was the last remaining player drafted during the Rams’ St. Louis days. After the youth movement of the past few years, he was one of the last three players — along with Matthew Stafford and Tyler Higbee — remaining from the Super Bowl LVI team.

Through it all, Avila was far from the only teammate that Havenstein provided some kind of comfort for.

“He’s got such a calming presence,” center Coleman Shelton said. “For me, a little more high-strung guy, I get in there and I’m all wired and I just look at him and he’s like, ‘Just take a breath, big dog, you’re going to be all right. It’s just ball, let’s just go out and play and let’s have fun.’ Playing with him for so long, it’s been a blessing.”

For years, Havenstein has said that his body would tell him when it would be time to call it a career. Injuries piled up in 2025, with ankle and knee issues costing him 10 games in the regular season and the entire postseason.

During locker room cleanout in January, Havenstein said that while he could have played through the ankle, he couldn’t play up to his standards.

So he found other ways to contribute, from smacking Puka Nacua’s shoulders before he took the field each drive to handing out smelling salts on the sidelines to pouring support into his backup, third-year tackle Warren McClendon Jr., both in the film room and after difficult performances, like when McClendon gave up a sack in the divisional round of the postseason.

“First day he came up to me and said, ‘Hey, it happens to the best of us,’ ” McClendon said. “It helped me push it away and keep going. Just little things like that, he’s always there for me.”

“I got a lot of love for this building, for this team, for that room,” Havenstein explained in January. “When I was young, guys were helping me out and so it’s something I could return the favor and just do what I can.”

That idea – a young “Big Rob” — has amused teammates like Avila and McClendon, who often talk about how they can’t imagine Havenstein in their shoes. He’s always been the salt-and-pepper-haired, nonplussed vet, speaking for the team any time he used his voice.

Or using that seniority to lighten the mood, like with his point system for the offensive line room.

“He makes it up as we go. So however he’s feeling,” McClendon said with a grin. “So I could just say something and he’ll be like, ‘Nah, negative points, Warren. Minus one, Warren.’ And on the board, he has plus a million.”

But Havenstein’s career is coming to an end, 148 regular-season starts and countless impacted Rams later.

“I think what says so much about his competitive character and who he is is the way that he’s influencing and affecting positive change,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said in January. “The more that I’m around Rob, the more I love him.”

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