We're All Waiting On Aaron Donald's Decision

But I want to start with something that I think is on everybody's mind after seeing the Aaron Donald workout video.

Um, he wanted to just get a feel for being in pads again.

And I think that that's a real thing for a player who was very comfortable walking away with his legacy secured.

You're not going to go in half pregnant if you're going to un-retire at Aaron Donald's age and come back and try to do this thing.

I mean, Aaron Donald's a guy who does it full bore.

But I mean, So I guess to reset the burning question, this is already, I, I, at least from my perspective, the best team on paper that I can remember going into a season in my time covering the NFL.

So can I throw one little bucket of cold water on that?

Sure.

I think the Alaric Jackson thing is a bigger deal than people realize.

He's one of the 4 or 5 best offensive tackles in the NFL, uh, and there's a very real chance that he starts the season suspended.

Eric Jackson is suspended.

I don't know who they replace him with.

I think it's a problem, you know, and I think it's just with an older quarterback who you want to minimize damage on him.

Um, I, it's just, it's not nothing.

You know what I mean?

Like, and I think there's gonna be a lot of hype and rightfully so.

They were very close to getting the Super Bowl last year.

They're adding Miles Garrett, they're adding Trent McDuffie.

Um, they look loaded for bear.

Expectations are sky-high as they should be, but left tackle is a very difficult position to have a deficiency at.

And They've got a really good one, who they paid, who, you know, now they, it looks like at least they're gonna have to manage his absence and for how long we'll see.

So I want to put this into a couple of buckets.

First of all, do you think that the Rams are worthy of just the unfounded hype?

Because, you know, you, if you're the Seahawks, you're standing over there and you're like, OK , dude, like we actually beat you guys twice.

We won the Super Bowl.

But the addition of Miles Garrett, the addition of Trent McDuffie, like all that stuff, it, it, it, it creates a hype snowball that is impossible to, to tame.

So let me give you a good anecdote, um, on this because I think, Um, it was just interesting from my perspective.

Uh, so during Super Bowl week, you know, uh, you know, the Patriot coaches know that I have an AP vote, and They love Drake, they all love Drake, right?

I had One of them come up to me after watching Matthew Stafford in the NFC title game, say, if you voted for that dude, I can't blame you.

And it was sort of tongue in cheek, but it was like a little bit more like real like, like this guy was out of this world and you saw what Seattle did.

To everyone else, you know, on that side of the ball, and, and the Rams scored the way they scored in that game, and I, and, and look like they, I think it was very clear, they tried to get away with having a lot less a corner the last few years, and it finally wound up biting them.

And So they go in and they basically import the Chiefs' corners.

They bring in Trent McDuffie, who is a pro's pro.

He can, he's, maybe he's not Pat Certan, maybe he's not Derrek Stingley, but like, he's somebody you can do a million different things with, and you're gonna get a really good level of performance from.

They bring in Jalen Watson, and then, of course, they get the big prize and bring in Miles Garrett.

And that was a defense that was already, you know, pretty good, even with the corner deficiency.

Um, You know, I, I, I think expectations should be super high for them.

Like, it wouldn't surprise me if they won 15 games, um, and that's even in that division that has the Super Bowl champion in it that has.

That, you know, has, has two teams that were in the Super Bowl over the last 3 years in it, you know, or the last 2 years in a row, no, 222, to the last 3 Super Bowls, so, um, yeah, I mean, I think that the, I think the Rams' expectations are where they should be.

Um, it's a really, really good team.

So let's get to Aaron Donald because I think, uh, so I agree with you in the sense that Alaric Jackson being suspended is devastating.

But at the same time, so this is like some fun research that I did, uh, for my first-time Pro Bowler's article.

How many Pro Bowl offensive linemen has Sean McVeigh had since he became the head coach of the Rams in 2017?

Is it 00.

so here's my rebuttal.

My rebuttal, go ahead.

is if you look at, if you look at coaches in that system.

What they generally have is the left tackle.

And they generally have the left tackle, and I can work with everybody else.

That's what Kyle Shanahan has had in San Francisco over all these years.

It was Joe Staley, and then it was Trent Williams, and that's most for the most part what Sean McVeigh has had.

One of the first things he did when he got there was sign Andrew Whitworth, and Andrew Whitworth was a foundation piece for the 1st 5 years.

And then they go to No boom.

How did Boom and they go to Pro Bowls, huh?

How did Whitworth not make any Pro Bowls there?

That's wild.

It could be just being in the same conference as Trent Williams and Joe Staley, and I mean, I think what we're, it is wild that he didn't, you know, because he was, I mean, I think one of the better players of his era at the position.

I think he did make the he made it during McVeigh's first year, so I, I mixed up the looking up the, he was first team all-pro actually, yeah, um, McVeigh's first year, yeah, um, but Connor, but so my rebuttal to the rebuttal is that the Rams, like Earric Jackson was an undrafted free agent, right, and they developed him into what he's become for sure.

And, and so is that impossible.

Throughout the course of a training camp.

I don't know.

I mean, but it is interesting, like Kevin Dodson, for example, on the Rams.

So going into the games where he was injured.

Uh, they were the 2nd-best team in EPA, uh, in, uh, rushing the ball, uh, 1st overall offensively.

When the 3 games that he missed at the end of the season, they were 16th.

And if you pull out offensive linemen from a steady McVeigh system, it does have, it does have ill effects, you know.

And so I absolutely think that that's worth our discussion and worth some thought here, but, I'll pivot to Aaron Donald because it's like.

It may not matter if, if we get a fresh Aaron Donald, and yes, he's 35, but God, he went out at the peak of his career.

He's refreshed.

He is, you know, 35 isn't what it used to be.

He maintained that shape.

I mean, pairing Miles Garrett and Aaron Donald, even at their ages would feel, Historic.

I don't know.

What, what are you, what are your thoughts on that?

I mean, like, I, I, I think we should, there, there's gotta be some level of respect for how difficult it is to pull that off at his age with that layoff, you know, um, and I think for most guys this would be like a total non-starter after that much time away from the game, but Aaron Donald is an outlier in like so many different ways that Uh, and he's kept himself in such great shape.

And here's the key to me, is the Rams have an ability to manage it because of how good they are at that position.

Because they have Kobe Turner, because they have Braden Fisk, because they bring in Puna Ford, because they drafted Ty Hamilton, um, last year and have developed him like they have the infrastructure where like he won't have to play a ton of snaps, and I think that's really key to it too .

The other thing is the timing, and I You know, I, I had a great conversation with Eric Weddle about this, you know, a few, uh, a few weeks ago and what it took for him to come back, and his layoff wasn't nearly as long.

His layoff was, I think he'd more or less been out of football for two years, right?

Like because his, his career ended, I think at the end of the 19 season, um, with the Rams, and then he came back for the 21 playoffs, so it was like two years off.

And he mentioned how, like, there are how many different things like, it just It, it was, there are, there are, there are injuries that he suffered like stuff that he where he got hurt during that stretch that he's still feeling now, 5 years later, you know, so there's like a life aspect to this too, and it was interesting to, and this is where I think the snaps question comes in, right, because Like McVeigh and Raheem Morris at the time, like, like, he relayed this story to me where he was like, you know, he thought he was gonna be coming in as like, hey, I'm gonna just kind of help out.

They're in such a bad spot with their, their, their injuries at safety.

Um, and like, I think it was before the Tampa game, which was their second playoff game, like Raheem and, and Sean come over to him and they're like, you're ready to go all, all out, you're ready to go, you know, play full-time now, right?

And he's like, what?

You know, and then he wound up playing every snap of the next game, and he actually said to me, he's like, the fact that the game was on grass really helped.

It was like little things like that.

And I think that that's the interesting part about this is like, What if Aaron Donald becomes their best option at the position or he's so good, right?

Like you still have to have like because all they needed Eric Weddle for was a max of 4 games which they maxed that out because they won the Super Bowl.

You have to like, you're, I think you're gonna have to be really, it's just an interesting question on how you manage that, especially if now all of a sudden he's your best option at the position, which I think that's why having really good players there already.

In Fisk and Turner, I think that really helps you in that like, it's less likely that you're gonna be in this spot where it's like, well, he's 3 times better than the guy that they already have cause the guys they already have are pretty good.

It's, it's to the point where, whereas with, with Weddell it wasn't that way because Weddell was , everyone was hurt at that position for them, right, right, it's to a point where like I'm wondering.

I, I think when we talked about this, the genius of the Miles Garrett move was kind of handing a bunch of predictive data over to Sean McVeigh and Raheem Morris, right?

Where you know where the protections are going to slide, you know where teams are going to run the ball, all that kind of stuff.

With Aaron Donald, it's almost like the Texans move to get Danielle Hunter, where it's like, now you have no options, right?

Like now, both sides of the line suck.

Now the middle sucks.

Like everything about this is a disaster for you defensively.

And even if Aaron Donald Just get them off the field on 3rd downs.

I, I think that that's a game changer.

Um, there, well, he's such a tough matchup too.

I mean, he's just such a, you can play him on the edge.

You can play, you could, you can play him anywhere , you know.

I mean, like I, I just like, like a guy who's kind of like got that like sawed-off build that's like, like I remember.

This is gonna be the dumbest example ever.

But we had a, um, we had a guy who was like a high school wrestler on our football team, who's a really good, really good high school safety.

And, you know, when we were, when I can't remember what year I was, I was either I was a junior, he was a sophomore, or I was a senior, he was a junior.

We started playing him at nose tackle some.

And it was because he was so strong for his size and he would get underneath blockers, you know, and it was just like such a unique matchup and it was so different for, from what like guys normally had to block, you know.

And Donald is that way and that Donald is like, you almost have to like, alignment almost has to adjust his technique.

To block him.

And so if you're throwing Kobe Turner and Braden Fisket at offensive linemen, and then all of a sudden on 3rd down, it's like, oh, here comes Aaron Donald, you know what I mean?

Like that's a problem.

And I just think.

I mean, I, I am fascinated to see, I, I can't wait to see the Rams play.

Like, I think it's just, I, I think that like what Chris Shu, what he's able to do in his, you know, his first year as the coordinate or his first, you know, his first couple of years as the coordinator there, and where I think he has the defense going, and now he has the cover guys in the back end, you know what I mean?

Like, it's just.

I If they stay healthy, there aren't gonna be a lot of ways to beat them.

There aren't gonna be a lot of places where you can exploit them, and that's why I bring up left tackle, you know.

But you're right, and then Aaron Donald, like, as, and that's as it is, that's without Aaron Donald.

And then you throw Aaron Donald into that, and now all of a sudden it's like in spots now you gotta deal with this guy.

Are you kidding me?

Like, you know, like that's the part where I, where I look at it and I'm like this is.

He's got a chance to be pretty awesome.

And I, I would think that like, part of it for Donald, that's got to be intriguing is that, man, like I could really make my legacy different than everybody else's, you know.

He's already the greatest Ram of the last quarter century and possibly of all time, you know, like I think he's in the all-time discussion, you know, um, but it will be interesting to see what happens there.

Uh, do you think, I, you know, I think he will brass tacks.

Do you think Aaron Donald's gonna do it?

I do.

I just don't know.

I like, here's the question to me.

Does it make more sense for them to put him through a full training camp and play him through the year?

Or does it make more sense for them?

To put this on ice.

And have him come in in November or December.

I mean, probably November, December.

But then how do you manage that?

And I, and I don't think like, I think with a lot of like guys it might cause a problem in your locker room, you know, yeah, but Aaron Donald is different.

Like no one's gonna have a problem with Aaron Donald getting this all out, you know what I mean?

It's like, yeah, where do we sign up for that, you know, and, and honestly, and this goes back to, and, and we're gonna move on here to the next one, but this goes back to, I remember, uh, I think the year that the Eagles won or, uh, they reached the Super Bowl against the Chiefs and They brought in, uh, Nomican Sue and Lynville Joseph in November.

And the reason why is because Fletcher Cox was begging for people to take some snaps away from him at that point in time.

Your body's beat up.

I'm sure that everybody at that point in time is like, oh, OK, the checks are already cleared for the season.

Sure, you could bring in Aaron Donald.

Like, yeah, I'll let that guy take a couple of snaps out of my, uh, out of my cash there.

Why not?