some stuff about whatzhizzname, that Donald Aron guy

My in-depth feature about Donald, his creativity and quarterback-like attention to detail, and how the Rams have tried, and often failed, to challenge him in their own practices: https://t.co/srOul4eULc pic.twitter.com/4JXi7tPFzI

— Jourdan Rodrigue (@JourdanRodrigue) November 21, 2023

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How the Rams’ Aaron Donald’s relentlessness, creativity begins in practice: ‘He’s an artist’

Jourdan Rodrigue

https://theathletic.com/4982107/2023/11/21/aaron-donald-rams-artist-practice-lineman/?source=emp_shared_article

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Point of view: You are nine-year veteran right tackle Rob Havenstein, in your stance at the line of scrimmage during a Los Angeles Rams training camp practice.

You hear the play call from the center, and look up. You notice Aaron Donald is also looking up. He’s staring directly at the center. He also heard the call.

“F—.”

“We (eventually) stopped making calls around him, because he knows what they mean,” Havenstein said. “If you make the call, and he’ll literally look back at the tackle and then tighten down, get skinny, and he’ll be like, ‘All right, I know exactly what is going to happen based off of stance, reads.’ He sees everything.”

Donald is also “always listening,” quarterback Matthew Stafford said. “He’s an intelligent player, and he’s hearing our calls. We had a situation and he was trying to move against the point, (and) we made a call to double to him. He moved to the other side.”

Stafford changed the protection call.

“(Then) he got up and moved over (again). I said, ‘I don’t care, just double him! Just like, he knows what’s coming.”

“I’ve done my best to not show, like, when I’m pulling,” said rookie left guard Steve Avila, earnestly. “I don’t know how, he just knows.”

“He’s a generational talent who plays the game super smartly. He puts the work in, to back that up,” Havenstein added. “It’s a long day, when he’s working on stuff.”

Donald, 32, has been an NFL great for almost a decade. He has been the Defensive Player of the Year three times, an All-Pro seven times and made the game-sealing play for the Rams in their Super Bowl LVI victory two seasons ago. Even in a down period for the Rams, the team with whom he has spent his entire career after being a first-round draft selection in 2014, Donald’s legend has not waned. He still ranks second in the NFL in pressures among defensive linemen (New York Giants’ Dexter Lawrence has six more, but in one more game), and among the top 10 of all pass rushers despite getting less space to work with than outside linebackers and seeing double teams at over a 60 percent rate, according to ESPN’s metrics.

Even after all he has accomplished, Donald has not eased up on the daily work. Donning a very 1980s-looking pair of cut-off sweatpants that reach his mid-calf at Rams practices, Donald is still all gas, all the time. It is at practice where Donald takes apparent joy from trying out new hand combinations to win his pass-rush reps, in palling around with and also challenging his now much-younger teammates and in generally being a menace to Stafford in training camp, or to whichever backup quarterback is running the scout-team offense during the season.
Donald is among the few players in NFL history who have had to be slowed down by his own team while at practice. Or at least, they’ve attempted it.

A few years ago, Havenstein and other veteran linemen started yelling fake calls pre-snap to try to get Donald to hesitate a little more off the line of scrimmage (it was not successful). His planned veteran rest days — which were installed well before Donald even hit his prime years — originated from an effort by coaches to get offensive linemen productive practice work without worrying about him on every play.

Rams coach Sean McVay jokes that one of the factors that helped him actually get his initial offense installed in training camp in 2017, as a first-year head coach, was the fact that Donald happened to be holding out for a new contract that year.

“He’ll ruin people for sure,” said McVay, grinning. “And if you don’t have specific plans for him … every single team goes into (game week) and that’s the first thing that they’re talking about. If you just say, ‘All right, we’re just going to play rules ball,’ it can really be bad for some of the development of some of your younger offensive linemen and things like that. (After his holdout), I told him, I jokingly said, ‘It’s a lot better when we don’t see you during training camp (so) you don’t have to upset me when I put my offensive hat on.’

“But you don’t ever get bored with it. You don’t ever take it for granted and he certainly never lets complacency set in. I think that’s why it’s not out of the question to say he is a one-of-one type of player.”

These days, Donald spends part of spring OTAs in his Pittsburgh hometown each year — working out in the University of Pittsburgh training facility that is named after him.

When training camp rolls around in late July, the Rams try to make things as game-like as possible for Donald and for the offensive linemen.

This summer, coaches game planned those practices to slide more protections toward Donald than usual, constantly double- and triple-teaming him. They wanted to help out their own offensive line, simulate what they would do in real life if they faced another dominant defender in games and help young defensive players understand how to rush around Donald — but to also challenge Donald in practice.

“The coaches told me they were going to slide every single play, so I was kind of mad because you want to be able to work different things,” Donald said in July, laughing. “But it’s realistic so I appreciate (them) doing that for me, (making) my job hard at practice and making me study a little longer at night. … It isn’t going to do nothing but make me better.”

Creative attempts by coaches, linemen and quarterbacks to befuddle Donald in practice lose out to his own understanding of every detail on every play. That can also help teammates.

“We had one where we changed the snap count. He was onside, but he was still moving before anyone else. I just kind of looked at him like, how did you know that? What did you see, that tipped that off?” Havenstein said. “If you’re presenting a weak spot, ask him. He’ll tell you.”

Chances are, Donald has already identified and tested it.

“I like to be good,” he said. Simple as that.

“Creative as all get-out, and just a madman,” inside linebacker Ernest Jones said.

Assistant defensive line coaches in Los Angeles — this year, it’s A.C. Carter, a former Denver Broncos assistant — are annually loaded up with extra T-shirts and sweatshirts from the Rams’ equipment staff. Those coaches are often tasked with standing in as offensive linemen during position drills, which Donald leads for the defensive line. Their clothing can, and often does, rip when the drills involve hand-fighting and leverage work.
During walk-throughs, if Donald sees an offensive lineman, he sometimes grabs them — twisting arms and shoulders in his hands.

“I’ll grab a certain arm and ask them how it feels,” he said, “just to see what the offensive lineman’s reaction would be. ‘Yeah, that s— would hurt, bro.’ Then you try to practice it, then put it into your repertoire.”

Donald doesn’t do this to make anybody feel bad. The point is to learn about leverages and body reactions and to get feedback from the linemen.

“Honestly, you kind of want to be that guy (on the other side),” Havenstein said. “Aaron is the type, especially in OTAs and stuff, where I can come back after a play and be like, ‘Why did you do that? What made you hit this move? I’m trying to get you to do something else, (so) how did you know?’”

Donald’s understanding of how to work his hands and combine sequences of movements and use opponents’ body weight against them has become a tall tale of sorts among younger teammates (and certainly opponents). Some swear he invents new moves.

Others, like Avila, talk with their friends outside of football about what it must be like to play against him as players in other positions. What is it like to be the running back Donald is chasing down, his arms spread wide like a hawk opening its talons before engulfing its prey?

Donald just laughs it all off. “S—, I don’t know. Nothing but a sign of respect, I guess?”

He swipes his arms down over the top of a ball carrier to try to absorb their inertia and get the ball loose, he explained. He’s just playing football, he insisted.

“It’s just a feel for the game, I guess,” he said. “After a while, it becomes second nature. You don’t know how to explain it, you just do it, if that makes sense.”

One day in practice, Donald came off a twist and grabbed Avila’s arms, pinning them to his sides. He started pushing Avila, who is 335 pounds and was regarded as one of the best offensive linemen in this year’s draft class, backward.

“I have never been beat like that,” Avila said, laughing.

The practice plan for the offensive linemen is also designed to help the defensive linemen and outside linebackers understand how to play off of Donald in game-like scenarios. Each new lineman who plays with Donald needs to learn how to rush around him. This year, that is a constant work in progress for a Rams defensive line that entered the season with no proven starters other than Donald, including two now-starting rookies in Kobie Turner and Byron Young.

“If we can dictate how they are going to set their protection (against him),” outside linebacker Michael Hoecht said, “then we can call our stuff to wrap it off. (It’s about) learning how to manipulate offensive protections and be that utility player where if they do slide to A-D, it’s going to help get him off that slide.”

If Hoecht, who used to be an interior defensive lineman before making the switch to outside linebacker in 2022, hears the interior linemen discussing alterations to the rush pattern or Donald passing along intel, he’ll quickly inform outside linebacker Young.

“I’ll give him one of these,” Hoecht said, signaling. “He knows that they’re doing something inside, so we’ve got to make sure that whatever they’re doing inside is right (on the outside).”

In Donald’s case, the inside can quickly invert to the outside because he frequently moves along the line of scrimmage. Edge defenders are double-teamed at much lower rates than interior linemen, so sometimes to try to get Donald away from those, coaches will align him as an outside linebacker.

In Indianapolis in Week 4, Donald actually lined up at every single position along the defensive line.

That’s a moment of panic, if you’re a tackle.

“You’re like, ‘Whew, A-D this week … but as a three-tech. Probably won’t see him,’” Havenstein said. “Then all of the sudden he lines up super wide and you’re like, ‘OK, he’s (still) a D-tackle.’ Then all the sudden he comes off the ball … and you’re like, ‘Oh, he’s got real speed. Real bend around the edge.’ Then you play for that. Then you’re like, ‘Oh, he’s got real power.’ Then you’re like, ‘All right’, then you sit on that. Then you’re like, ‘Oh, he’s got a real inside move.’

“Then you’re like, ‘OK. This is not a defensive tackle playing defensive end. This is Aaron Donald playing football.’”

Defensive line coach Eric Henderson, who has coached Donald since 2019, says Donald obsesses over film even while away from the facilities and at his Los Angeles home.

“If you watch film, you might be able to split the center’s slide,” said Donald, offering an example. “If you watch on film and see him slide that enough so you know how you’ve got to be able to take it upfield, how you (can) come in and flip your hips and get to the back of the pads — it’s all studying. … Study, second nature. Then just become who you are.”

Donald often texts Henderson complete ideas for pass-rush designs based on the upcoming opponent at the beginning of the week — when most players are still recovering from the previous game.

Donald isn’t in the coaches’ meetings, but sometimes will text Henderson a series of thoughts that makes Henderson playfully ask if he was actually sitting in the room as the coaches designed the game plan.

“He’s just on it. He is that kind of player,” Henderson said. “People talk about ‘quarterbacks on the field.’ Well, this guy is a quarterback. Everybody talks about his skill set, but I’ll be the first one to talk about the mental capacity that he has. You cannot be the type of player that he is, without having that type of mental capacity. … He’s special.”

When the two meet in Henderson’s office, they go back and forth with the potential scenarios for those designs — not just what could happen on the rush itself, but the responsibilities and reactions of all 11 defensive positions.

“We’re always talking about where he would have play ops, including where he’d have the ability to use that creativity that he has been blessed to have,” Henderson said. “But it’s really more than just having creativity. It’s having an elite feel for the game that allows your athleticism to take place, while not putting the defense in harm’s way.

“It’s awesome. I always want him to feel comfortable sharing his thoughts on things, because usually he’s right. Usually, we’re on the same page anyway.”

Being wrong in his rush plan is a rarity. But even when Donald is “wrong,” he can end up right — because of how his presence can affect an offense, and because of how some teammates have learned to read him.

At Indianapolis, the Rams set up a pressure design on a third-and-4 that featured Donald out wide as an outside linebacker, and both inside linebackers (Jones and Christian Rozeboom) aligned in Donald’s place on the inside. Donald and Rozeboom rushed, and Donald’s presence flushed quarterback Anthony Richardson out of the pocket. Jones, his eyes on Donald and Richardson, stayed back instead of rushing and then followed Richardson into the flat, where he got the sack.

Jones read Donald perfectly to get to Richardson, even though it wasn’t the rush dictated by the play call or the intent of the design. Afterward, Donald said he was the one who had made the error on the play, and wanted Jones to get due credit for “saving him.”

“He could have thrown me right under the bus,” Jones said, delighted by the credit he got from Donald. “Everybody would have ran with it. But that’s the type of guy he is, he’s an honorable guy. He wants what is best for the team. In situations like that, we always got his back. We know: Rush off A-D. Make plays.”

The play got made. His young teammates grew from that moment. This is what matters to Donald now, after every possible accolade, a championship and a sure ride to the Hall of Fame in his future. Ahead of what he knew would be a rocky 2023 season, featuring a gutted defensive roster, Donald told McVay and general manager Les Snead just to make sure they refilled it with young players who “care.” He knew he would do his part in practice every day.

Well, that matters to him, and one other thing. Donald asked about the play — a likely failure had anybody else in the world but him guessed “wrong,” because of how fast he got into Richardson’s pocket — with a laugh and a wide grin:

“Did it look good?”