Farr on his 11.5 sack Rams DT record & Donald

Farr has nothing but praise for Donald

Jim Thomas

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/football/professional/farr-has-nothing-but-praise-for-donald/article_727b8eb8-d97c-5a9d-99f3-6dbc602778ff.html

The first thing D’Marco Farr did when he met Aaron Donald was the height thing.

“See who was taller,” Farr explained. “I’ve got him by a hair. No matter what he says, I’m just a wee bit taller.”

Donald is listed as 6-1 on the Rams’ roster. That seems generous. Farr, by the way, was measured at 6 feet and ¾ of an inch when he came out of college.

Other than being vertically-challenged, Rams defensive tackles — one present, one past — Donald and Farr had something else in common by the end of the Rams’ 21-14 victory over Detroit on Sunday.

A three-sack day against the Lions gave Donald 11 for the year. And that made him the first Rams defensive tackle since Farr in 1995 with 10 or more sacks in one season. Farr had 11½ sacks that season, the team’s inaugural campaign in St. Louis.

“Man, I’m pumped up about it,” Donald said, when informed of the milestone. “My first three-sack game and we came away with a big win. A big win that we needed coming off that losing streak, so it feels even better.”

Further research by the Rams’ media relations department revealed that only one other defensive tackle in franchise history has had double-digit sacks in a season: Sean Gilbert, with 10½ in 1993.

Keep in mind, sacks didn’t become an official NFL stat until 1982.

Usually, if a defensive tackle gets five or six sacks in a season, he’s considered a good pass rusher. Things are simply too congested inside, and the bodies just too big, to be running free at quarterbacks with much regularity.

Making Donald’s feat all the more impressive: Imagine how many sacks he might have if defensive ends Robert Quinn and Chris Long had been available all season to draw the attention of opposing blockers.

Especially when Quinn started missing time with first a knee, and then a back injury, Donald saw a steady diet of double-team blocking.

“It’s a part of the game,” Donald shrugged. “You’re gonna win some, you’re gonna lose some. But you’ve just gotta keep going.”

Donald is winning a lot more than he’s losing. He needs one sack over the Rams’ final three games to pass Farr as the franchise’s single-season sack leader at defensive tackle.

“I’ve still got him by a half-sack,” joked Farr, who’s still around the program as a game analyst for Rams radio.

Not that he’s keeping track or anything.

“It’s not something that you closely monitor — not from a personal standpoint,” Farr said. “It’s just, being a Rams broadcaster, I hope for somebody to have that interior presence to help the pass rush out.”

Farr knew from the get-go that Donald could be something special when the Rams drafted him in 2014.

“Just watching him play, how he played,” Farr said. “How quick he is beating one-on-ones, I knew that eventually this guy was gonna be the double-digit sack guy in the middle that they needed.”

After registering nine sacks en route to NFL defensive rookie of the year honors in 2014, it took Donald just 13 games to reach double figures this season.

Donald knows Farr a little, and has talked to him a couple of times about line play.

“They say his ‘get-off’ was a little faster,” Donald said. “His get-off was real fast. It’s just good to have guys like him and La’Roi Glover, guys that played at a high level, to be around here and I can talk to them.”

Glover, now the Rams’ director of player engagement, spent the last three seasons of his NFL playing career with the Rams from 2006-08. He rose to fame as an interior pass-rusher with the New Orleans Saints, registering 17 sacks in 2000.

That’s the second-highest total in league history for a defensive tackle — Keith Millard had 18 for Minnesota in 1989.

Farr does see a little of himself in Donald when he watches him play.

“You know what? I think I may have him in just the 10-yard burst,” Farr said. “Just the get-off part. But I’ll tell you this: He is 10 times as strong as I was. Seriously.

“When you’re using the dusty dumbbells — you know the ones on the end that the guys are afraid to lift? — that’s when you know you’re strong.”

And that’s how strong Donald is.

Farr is the common thread between Gilbert and Donald when it comes to the three most prolific interior pass-rushers in modern franchise history. He’s linked to Donald because of his radio work.

They don’t talk that often. Farr knows how busy an NFL player is during the season, and respects that.

“But whenever we catch one of those stolen moments, I ask him, what does he see and how’s he seeing it?” Farr said. “‘How are they trying to block you? What are the protections like?’ And he’ll tell me.”

What Farr hears from Donald are the same things he faced playing for the Super Bowl champion Rams in 1999.

They’re sending the guard after me. They’re sliding protection. They’re trying to get me to commit to the A gap.

“So I can relate,” Farr said.

At the other end of the D-tackle spectrum, Farr was a teammate of Gilbert’s when he broke into the league in 1994.

“Sean Gilbert was my mentor,” Farr said. “I know he got a bad rap for being lazy or whatever people used to say about him. But being in the locker room, being a D-tackle coming into the league, I couldn’t have found or landed in a better spot to find a better mentor than Sean Gilbert.

“He was basically a bigger version of me. We saw the game the same way.”

Farr thinks Donald sees the game the same way as well. How so?

“You can dominate the game,” Farr said. “You can absolutely dominate a game from a three-technique position, from a defensive tackle position. That’s how he plays. And that’s how I tried to play.”

But there’s one difference, as Farr sees it.

“His upside is a lot higher than mine,” Farr said. “I just love watching him play.