Donald in December

‘Pretty close to perfect’: Aaron Donald’s dominance defined by opponents’ awe

Jourdan Rodrigue

https://theathletic.com/2259164/2020/12/17/aaron-donald-rams-defensive-award/?source=twittered

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — There simply aren’t any new ways to describe Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald, though it’s not for lack of trying.

“Tasmanian Devil. Us old folks, we know what that cartoon looks like,” Tampa Bay head coach Bruce Arians said. “He’s non-stop, (has a) great get-off. He’s got a great toolbox of moves that’s second to none (and he is) just a hell of a football player.”

“Well,” Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said, “I think he’s pretty close to perfect. He’s just faster than the other guys who play that position. … He’s invented moves by jumping through pass-rush opportunities and stuff.”

Donald, who leads the NFL with 12.5 sacks, is having another season worthy of Defensive Player of the Year candidacy, after winning the award in 2017 and 2018. It’s an occurrence so normal at this point that opposing coaches, plus Donald’s own coaches and his teammates, have to dig really deep for their adjectives and illustrators.

“I’d probably describe him like Deebo,” Rams receiver Robert Woods said, referring to the character from the movie “Friday.” “Really a guy who just comes in, imposes his will, throws guys around. He does what he wants. If that’s his bike, that’s his bike.”

“The best player I’ve ever seen in person,” Rams tight end Tyler Higbee said. “He’s a silent assassin.”

Before a September game against the Rams, Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll said dryly that the game plan against Donald involved hoping “he missed the bus” to the stadium.

“I’m always the first one on the bus and the first one on the football field. I’m always early, so I’m never late,” Donald responded, equally as dry. “I wish people could just not worry about me and just let me play. Don’t give me any attention. You ain’t got to slide, you ain’t got to double-team me, you don’t have to do nothing. Let’s all play football fair, get some one-on-ones and let’s just do what we’ve got to do. That’s all I want.”

But oh, opposing coaches do worry.

They just don’t have any new ways to defend Donald, let alone describe him. They’ve adjusted their protections, schemed plays away from him when they can, thrown behind the line of scrimmage just to get the ball out and away from him. Rams head coach Sean McVay and defensive coordinator Brandon Staley have even indicated that, on run plays, more teams are running the ball away from wherever Donald is lined up. Donald is doubled and triple-teamed on 70 percent of his pass-rush snaps, according to ESPN and Next Gen Stats. Still, he has the highest pass-rush win rate in the league at 23 percent.

“We pray a lot,” Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury told ESPN earlier this year. “He’s one of those guys that, whatever you try to do, he tends to find a way to be disruptive and teams over his career have tried different ways to negate his presence, but you just don’t.”

New York Jets coach Adam Gase said sarcastically this week that the Jets’ plan to succeed against Donald is “to wait for him to get out of the game.”

“I mean, you can try to do all of these things, but he’s going to make plays,” Gase said. “You have to try to minimize his ability to just absolutely destroy the game. I mean, there are just so many times where he gets in the backfield, whether it’s a run or a pass. He creates fumbles. He causes quarterbacks to throw the ball sooner than they want to. It’s very difficult to just completely eliminate him from the game.”

That’s the exact strategy the Rams’ offense used in training camp this summer: McVay gave Donald a rare rest day, holding him out of drills completely so that they could better install their system without the offensive linemen getting so constantly hassled. These days, McVay cracks that Donald’s weekly day off is to “give their guards a chance,” but I’m not entirely convinced he’s joking.

Donald’s sack total of 12.5 is, let’s be clear, freaking insane for an interior defensive lineman to achieve, but somehow it has become normalized when coming from him. He also has been the closest defensive lineman to the opposing quarterback in nine of the Rams’ 13 games, averaging 4.12 yards of distance per pass rush, according to Next Gen Stats. The league average among all pass-rushers, both interior and outside, is 4.52 yards. That means that, on any given pass-rush snap, Donald is over a foot closer to the quarterback than every other rusher.

Even those notable statistics don’t do enough to accurately describe him.

Staley says that to actually get a sense for just how complete, and completely great, a player Donald is, we have to focus on what he helps make happen all around him on any given play — even when he’s not accumulating a stat in the process.

“When you are the most valuable player, your value extends far beyond just yourself — it’s how you affect others,” Staley said. “Then the intangible part of his game is about being a leader and establishing the way that you come to work as a professional every day. There’s no one that embodies competitive excellence more than Aaron Donald.”

Staley hopes that such variables will be in consideration among NFL awards voters as the regular season draws to a close.

“He has earned the attention of the opposing offense week in and week out,” McVay said. “He’s the biggest freak that he still shows up on the stat sheet — but even when he doesn’t, he’s affecting the game in so many ways.”

First and foremost, Donald changes the math of the Rams’ defense — an advantage for them and a disadvantage for opponents. This presents itself in many ways, including how the Rams scheme their front seven and then rotate the secondary, but the easiest way to track it on any given play is how Donald is doubled.

If there is an extra blocker (or sometimes two) on Donald, other players down the defensive line are getting less attention and may find it easier to get to the quarterback. The linebackers and cornerbacks may find easier blitz gaps. The entire pocket moves because of how the line must shift to block. This all affects the way a play unfolds and whether Donald gets a sack or a pressure on the play or not.

“When you feel like (as an opponent), in order to compete through the down, you’d better account for him with two people, sometimes three,” McVay said, “and if you’re one-on-one, he’s as close to automatic as I’ve ever seen in my life. And so that right there … that enables you to change the math. It means somebody else is getting a one-on-one opportunity.

“I think the best display of greatness is making the people around you better, and that’s what he does.”

It’s not always about the pass rush, either. Just look at the way Donald set into motion inside linebacker Kenny Young’s pick-six interception against New England last Thursday night.

Donald diagnosed the play and knew that running back Damien Harris was going to feign as a blocker, then cut quickly out for a screen pass from Cam Newton. So Donald got an arm free from his blocker and used it to knock Harris off his path. The timing of the play required Newton to release the ball just as Harris got to his spot, and he didn’t (because of Donald). Instead, waiting for the ball was Young, who plucked it out of the air and ran it back to the opposite end zone, with Donald and cornerback Jalen Ramsey blocking the whole way.

Staley said the Rams studied that specific play-action running back screen many times on tape ahead of the game, noting that it’s a calling-card play in offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels’ arsenal.

“It’s something that Aaron had an incredible reaction to,” Staley said. “It’s him being able to nudge the back and be in the way of that, that forced Cam — Cam threw a good pass, it’s just the back got off-track because of Aaron. It’s just one of those plays that players like him make. … (He’s) studying the game, and his real instincts take over in that moment.”

This year — through no dastardly plot from a conspiring group of opposing coaches — it has felt like there’s been a natural and league-wide effort to slow down Donald. Holding calls have decreased around the NFL, and Donald certainly isn’t getting them (although he’s certainly getting held). In fact, the holding call Donald drew last week against New England was his first of the season on a passing play. He now has drawn two holding calls (the other was on a run play) in 707 snaps.

The Rams are tracking this stat throughout the year so they can make a case to the league in the offseason. Staley says it’s just another sign of Donald’s greatness, comparing his holds to the days of “Hack-a-Shaq” fouling in the NBA.

“That’s just saying that people are blocking him straight up, which we know is not the case,” Staley said. “Players like that, it’s like Shaquille O’Neal back when he was playing. This guy, I think people take for granted how good he is and we need to make sure that people are seeing the game the way they need to.”

McVay is as accustomed to seeing Donald get held every week as he is to using superlatives like “freak,” “greatness,” “relentless” and “automatic” to describe the star defensive tackle.

In fact, a couple of months ago, as I kept hearing him use the same praises over and over, I asked McVay: Since we’re all out of words to describe Donald, could you try to just … make one up?

McVay responded with a laugh, and an unintelligible noise — sort of similar to the sound a VHS tape makes when it rewinds — like how McVay might rewind Donald’s highlights to watch over and over in awe.

Seems about right.

McVay gave it his best effort, but let’s face it, there just aren’t any new ways to describe Donald.

So how about we just call him, “Defensive Player of the Year” again, and leave it at that?