Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald is knocking the rust off.
Donald retired from football in 2024. But the prospect of joining a loaded Rams defense enticed him to rejoin his old squad. As he told reporters at a press conference Sunday, it’s just a matter of getting the work in to be ready for the season.
“It felt a little weird for me,” he said after practice Sunday. “But it felt good to be in my first team meeting today. It was a long one too, an hour and 20 minutes. It felt good to be back around the guys, getting to see the guys in the locker room, on the field. Got to do some individuals today. So I’m starting to feel a little bit more acclimated as a football player. It ain’t as weird to me now because I kind of got a little day under my belt.”
The Rams drafted Donald out of Pittsburgh with the 13th overall pick in 2014. Despite being somewhat undersized for an interior defensive lineman (6-foot, 285 pounds), he became one of the most disruptive players in the NFL. He racked up double-digit sacks in six of his 10 seasons. In 2018, he led the league in sacks with 20.5 and added a league-leading 25 tackles for loss (TFL). He led the league in TFLs again with 20 in 2019.
His career stats include: 543 total tackles, 176 TFLs, 111 sacks, 24 forced fumbles and 7 recoveries, and 21 passes defended. He was a Pro Bowler in all 10 seasons and an eight-time First-Team All-Pro, and he won Defensive Player of the Year three times. He was a key part of the Rams squad that won Super Bowl LVI in 2022.
Donald’s comeback was at least partially motivated by the Rams’ trading for edge rusher Myles Garrett. Garrett is a former two-time Defensive Player of the Year and seven-time All-Pro and Pro Bowler. With the two of them and edge rusher Byron Young—who had 12 sacks and 12 TFLs last season—the Rams could easily have one of the most disruptive defensive fronts in the NFL.
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“Oh, that was a huge part,” Donald said of his new teammates. “I think that the D-line group alone, you talk about the interior guys, and then you got B.Y., and then you bring guys like Myles Garrett out here. I already thought it was a stacked D line with [former edge rusher Jared] Verse. Obviously, things transpire, and then you bring a guy like Myles Garrett, a generational talent, and it’s like, that can be fun, right? And obviously what they did on the back end with bringing certain pieces they need in the secondary.”
Donald said he thinks the Rams are a complete team with or without him, and he regarded it as a great blessing to be a part of it, especially after being away from the game for two years, and he was willing to do whatever it took to return the Rams to the Super Bowl. He stressed that he was not going to take anyone’s job, but would earn everything.
The comeback has been in the works for some time: Donald said he was “in a football mindset” for the past 14 weeks and has been keeping himself in shape, lifting and conditioning in his time off. On his first day of practice, he worked with his speed trainer since high school. The trainer told him he had not lost a step in his time away.
At this point, it’s simply a matter of knocking the rust off and getting re-accustomed to full-team work, retraining his eyes and reaction skills, and re-acclimating himself to the speed of the NFL.
“But do I feel like I can play at a high level? Yes,” he said. “Do I feel like I can still be myself? One-hundred percent. If I didn’t feel like that, I wouldn’t be here. From everything I did, from training with just conditioning to the football transition and doing football drills and things in that nature. I recorded everything. I studied myself to a T, watched every movement, every cut, every hip flip. In my opinion, I don’t see [any] difference. If not, it looks a little cleaner than me. [After] two years, [my] body feels a little different, but it’s still got to go out there, play 11 on 11, get myself going and get myself where I need to be as far as like playing football again.”
