Aaron Donald didn’t have to return, but Rams’ defensive reboot made it hard to say no
Nate Atkins
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7551443/2026/08/30/rams-aaron-donald-return-retirement/?unlocked_article_code=1.9lA.mXxI._kBicZ2mhMLD&source=emp_shared_article&smid=ta-ios-share
LOS ANGELES — Aaron Donald walked onto a grass field at the Los Angeles Rams’ practice facility wearing his No. 99 jersey, back as a player for the first time since the 2023 season. He had a quick conversation with Matthew Stafford, began to stretch and let reality wash over him like rays of sunlight.
“It felt weird coming in and knowing that I’m an actual football player,” Donald said after practice. “Obviously, I’m always around, but to be like, ‘OK, I’m on the team,’ it felt a little weird for me.”
The return for this three-time Defensive Player of the Year is finally happening, after months of conversations and social media rumors, after talking to coach Sean McVay “damn near every single day,” and after what Donald called 14 weeks of training and thinking in an NFL mindset again.
Donald is back on a one-year, $20 million contract with incentives that could increase his pay to as much as $30 million, a league source told The Athletic on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to share those details publicly. And on Sunday, the day NFL rosters were trimmed to 53 players, Donald was back to launching his power into a blocking sled in individual drills.
Last fall, when Donald visited the facility the week the Rams were set to honor him during a Sunday night game, he said he felt no itch to return to football. He was comfortable in his new and growing media career, with a wife and children who were growing up with their father always around.
That was then.
The temptations began when the Rams’ offseason took off like a rocket ship this spring. First came Stafford’s announcement that he would return for an 18th season, fresh off winning his first MVP award. Then came a blockbuster trade for two-time All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie and the signing of his Kansas City Chiefs running mate, Jaylen Watson, to play outside cornerback.
And then the Rams pulled off another blockbuster trade with the Cleveland Browns for reigning Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett, fresh off an NFL-record 23-sack season.
“That was a huge part,” Donald said. “Talking about the D-line room, you’ve got the interior guys and then you have B.Y. (Byron Young) and guys like Myles Garrett out here. I already thought it was a stacked D-line with (Jared) Verse, and then things transpired and you bring in a guy like Myles Garrett, a generational talent, and it’s like, that could be fun.
“Obviously, with what they did on the back end with bringing certain pieces to the secondary, I think this is a complete team with me or without me here.”
So Donald ramped up the workouts that have been circulating on social media since he retired. He reconnected with the speed trainer he’s worked with since high school. He started working the movements again and recording them all — “every cut, every hip flip,” he said — and saw something more than what was left in the tank when he retired. That’s also what his teammate Desjuan Johnson saw when the two worked out together for ladder and speed drills at the team facility this month.
“It feels like he even got a little bit faster, a little bit hungrier in a way,” the defensive end said.
Rams players and coaches encouraged Donald to come back in the spring. But come training camp, they left the process up to him.
“He doesn’t have to do this,” McVay said. “What he’s done throughout the 10 years, and I’ve watched him pour every ounce of his soul into this game and into his teammates. When you care as much and when you pour as much into it, that’s when you can say, ‘I’m full, and I’m complete after 10 years.’”
He didn’t have to do this, but a part of him couldn’t say no. That’s the place he arrived at two weeks ago, with his wife’s blessing and a season approaching with all the potential it could offer a roster like this one.
“The Super Bowl being back at SoFi (Stadium) kind of excites you, too,” Donald said.
Donald, of course, strengthened his legacy the last time SoFi Stadium hosted the Super Bowl following the 2021 season, when he pressured Joe Burrow into a fourth-down incompletion to seal a 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals to help the Rams win the Lombardi Trophy.
He isn’t looking at that highlight, his 111 career sacks or eight first-team All-Pro selections as a past version of him.
“Do I feel like I can play at a high level? Yes. Do I feel like I can still be myself? One hundred percent,” Donald said. “If I didn’t feel like that, I wouldn’t be here. … If anything, it’s just getting back on the grass and knocking the rust off as far as playing football again, 11-on-11, working my eyes, getting my feel for the game, certain reactions and things that made me who I am.”
That’s the process Donald will undergo now. He participated in just individual drills Sunday, and he’ll need time to fit into a defensive line that has practiced for the past five weeks with Garrett and Young on the edges and a mix of Kobie Turner, Poona Ford and Braden Fiske on the interior.
They’ll certainly make room for Donald, but they’re not forcing the timeline, as his status for the Week 1 trip to Melbourne, Australia, to play the San Francisco 49ers is currently up in the air.
But he didn’t come back to be just a part-time investment, either. That’s why it took 14 weeks of workouts and flying a speed trainer to Los Angeles, and it’s why the Rams will pay him at least $20 million to complete their offseason overhaul.
“Once you choose to come back, you’re all the way back in,” Donald said. “You can’t be halfway in it. You have to be all the way in it.”
Now is the time to work, but it’s also the time to dream. Soon enough, Donald will be sharing a defensive line with Garrett. It’ll mark the first time in NFL history that one team has featured two players with at least 100 career sacks and a 20-sack season in their careers.
“We’re teammates now,” Donald said with a smile. “Hopefully we can do some special things together.”
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