Donald's praise du jour, 8/10 … to 9/9

Rams lineman Aaron Donald small in stature, huge in impact

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/donald-728420-defensive-tackle.html

IRVINE – Since the advent of the forward pass, conventional knowledge dictates a pass rush should be built from the outside. For decades, that meant the NFL’s most feared defenses were crafted around freakish defensive ends or rush linebackers, most of whom appeared predisposed to terrorize quarterbacks. Glory – and glamorous paychecks – were earned collecting gaudy sack totals. Sack artists, they were so glowingly labeled.

Just a few feet inside, meanwhile, their counterparts at defensive tackle were often cast as oversized workmen, plugging rush gaps and forcing double teams, toiling away in relative obscurity. They were almost always paid less. Rarely were they counted on to get after the quarterback.

On the all-time, single-season sacks list, only three defensive tackles crack the post-merger top 50. From 2003-12, the position was even more bereft of pass-rushers: Only six defensive tackles tallied double-digit sack totals in a season during that stretch, while 40 defensive ends reached that mark.

At the outset of the 2016 season, though, that balance of power on the defensive line might finally be shifting inside. In March 2015, the Dolphins made defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh the highest-paid defensive player in the NFL with a six-year, $114.375 million deal. The Buccaneers and Bills also locked up their own interior weapons in Gerald McCoy and Marcell Dareus, respectively, signing them each to deals of $95 million or more.

This June, the mega-deals continued, as the Eagles’ contract extension with Fletcher Cox surpassed nine figures – and included about $4 million more in guaranteed money than Suh’s deal. After years of anonymity, the interior renaissance finally is upon us.

As it stands, five of the nine biggest NFL contracts on defense belong to defensive tackles. But still missing in that group is the most feared interior rusher in all of the NFL, who – at 25 years old, with only a $2.7 million cap hit – might very well redefine the defensive tackle position as we know it.

“The game has changed,” says Aaron Donald, that rare talent who over the course of two seasons, 20 sacks, and an endless highlight-reel of nightmare-inducing bullrushes, has almost singlehandedly turned the Rams into a defensive force.

It’s the final week of his third training camp with the Rams, and on the practice field in Irvine, Donald is explaining just how an undersized defensive tackle became the new prototype at a position once defined by size and brute strength.

“It’s more of a speed game now,” he says. “There’s a lot more zone schemes, a lot more running sideways. You can be a guy who’s 285 and 6-foot-1, as long as you can hold a double-team sometimes and do your job.”

Of course, to suggest that Donald wouldn’t succeed in a different era is to ignore everything he has demonstrated in his two seasons. His speed on the interior is unmatched. His strength is akin to that of a much larger, bulkier tackle, even after he cut his body fat percentage below 10 percent in the offseason. He easily slices through double teams.

Quite simply, Donald is as close to unstoppable as one finds in the NFL. And as an already-pass-heavy league continues to evolve in his favor, football’s new prototype in the middle is ready to wreak havoc on NFL offenses, and – in due time – take that havoc to the bank.

* * *

The first time Mike Waufle sat across from Donald in his office, the Rams defensive line coach told his first-year defensive tackle something he’d never, in 14 years of coaching, considered telling another NFL rookie. But after playing and replaying Donald’s highlights from Pitt, watching him win every collegiate defensive award, obliterate his competition at the Senior Bowl, and then, run the fastest 40-yard dash for a defensive tackle at the combine since 2000 (4.68), it was clear Donald required a different approach.

That Donald fell all the way to 13th overall, where the Rams had been waiting with their second first-round pick of the 2013 draft, was no less than a miracle to Waufle. Unlike others, he was not deterred in the slightest by Donald’s “undersized” frame. As an assistant with the Raiders and Giants, he routinely used smaller, quicker linemen on the interior. With the Giants, he once used 263-pound end Justin Tuck as a nose tackle during the team’s Super Bowl run.

In his office, Waufle looked his rookie straight in the eye: “I’m going to say a lot of things in this room,” he told him. “However, I do not want you to listen to one word I say. Just play like you did in college.”

Still, Donald asked Waufle to cut up highlights of Vikings Hall of Famer John Randle and other great, undersized defensive lineman such as Warren Sapp of the Bucs and La’Roi Glover of the Saints, both of whom stood 6-foot-2. Donald studied the film obsessively.

Such obsession is part of his personality, he explains. From high school into college, he was so determined to become a pingpong virtuoso that he played for hours on end, challenging anyone willing to play – coaches, teammates, strangers. “It was non-stop,” he says. But it worked. As one episode of HBO’s “Hard Knocks” showed, Donald is an exceptional pingpong player.

In training camp that fall, that thirst to be the best was instantly clear. The Rams offensive line couldn’t block him. During his first week, nose tackle Michael Brockers remembers sitting down to casually watch Donald’s college highlights on YouTube that first week. He ended up consuming all 14 minutes.

By October, Donald announced his presence to the entire league. In a Week 7 win over the Seahawks, he burst through the line and body-slammed running back Marshawn Lynch in the backfield for a violent 5-yard loss. Teammates were stunned.

“I remember thinking then this might be the best football player I’ve ever seen,” defensive end William Hayes says.

Donald was named Rookie of the Year and followed that with a more dominant 2015 season. He tallied 11 sacks – already startling for a defensive tackle – though, he almost certainly could have had more. According to Pro Football Focus, Donald hit or hurried quarterbacks 37 times last season – 14 more than any other defensive tackle.

In an increasingly pass-heavy league, Donald’s size – or lack thereof – has become one of his greatest assets. At 6-foot-1, he has a lower center of gravity than most defensive tackles, which allows him to get under an offensive lineman’s pads easier than the likes of Brockers, his interior counterpart, who stands five inches taller. In addition, his fast first step makes it nearly impossible for linemen to keep their footing in front of him.

“It’s all about leverage and speed,” Waufle said. “He has a whole lot of both.”

He also has an advantage in Waufle, whose career has been tailored to exploit such a unique skillset. Waufle learned the nuances of defensive line play from respected assistant John Teerlinck, who helped popularize the 3-technique defensive tackle with John Randle in the 1990s. Like Donald, Randle was 6-foot-1, and as Waufle enters Year 3 with his transcendent young tackle, he is using Teerlinck’s work with Randle as his guiding light. This season, Donald will move around even more on the Rams’ line. He might even rush off the edge.

Donald insists he’s more comfortable in that role as this season begins. He’s quicker. His understanding of the scheme is more complex. His pass-rushing technique has improved. He promises he should get to the quarterback even more often in 2016.

“He’s the best defensive player in football,” Hayes said. “That’s the reality, and I don’t think it’s even really that close. He’s just different. Different than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

* * *

Most of the NFL’s best defensive tackles are still towering, 300-pound behemoths. The five highest-paid players at the position stand at least 6-foot-3 and weigh at least 295 pounds.

But with Donald, that is destined to change. The 2018 season, once his option is picked up, will be the final year of his rookie contract. Before then, the Rams will almost certainly offer Donald a contract that could make him the highest-paid defensive player in NFL history, one that could eclipse six years and $120 million.

Such a deal would fall just short of the deal handed to Andrew Luck by the Colts this offseason – a significant investment in any non-quarterback, let alone a defensive tackle. In Donald’s case, though, he looks to be worth it.

Until then, he will keep studying film of past undersized greats, gleaning as many details as he can.

“When you talk about 3-techs – the John Randles, the Warren Sapps, the La’Roi Glovers – I want my name in that conversation,” Donald said. “I’ve got a lot more work to do, but that’s my mindset. I want to be great.”

In the Rams’ own building, one of those greats has watched closely over his first two years in the NFL. A four-time All-Pro with the Saints at just 6-foot-2, 290 pounds, Glover, now the Rams’ director of player engagement, has offered his advice to Donald on occasion, one undersized defensive tackle to another.

But as Waufle understood, Glover isn’t sure how much he can really teach Donald, either. After watching these last two dominant seasons, in fact, he wonders if Donald might already be on a level of his own – an undersized but overpowering nightmare at tackle, with the capability of changing how defenses value the interior.

“I’m not afraid to say it,” Glover said. “He has the potential to be the best ever.”