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Rodrigue: Lessons learned from Aaron Donald, greatness personified
Jourdan Rodrigue..I remember this like it happened just yesterday.It was my first week of Los Angeles Rams practice in 2020 — really, a first week back for many after COVID-19 lockdowns, but for me it also was my first real week on the beat.
Of course I wanted to see Aaron Donald in person. He was already a legend many times over who was whispered about in awed tones in other NFL buildings I’d covered. I had already heard plenty of gripes about how long it took to game plan for him. A coach tipped me off: Spend your first days watching him practice. If I did that, I’d understand everything there was to know about Aaron, and so too what the Rams were all about.
So I stood behind the hit sled as defensive line drills began. He was smaller than I thought — mythological beings usually are, when you meet them — and as he took his stance in the lead spot of the drilling line, I held my phone up and started to record. Thud. Thud. Donald didn’t hit the sled, that’s not the right way to describe it. He assessed its physics with fluid, assertive movements. In his hands, the sled wasn’t a sled. It was a tool, and also it was doomed.
Aaron Donald retired Friday. He is a three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, eight-time first-team All-Pro, 10-time Pro Bowler and a Super Bowl winner. (Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)
Suddenly, he flicked his arms and wrists to swipe across the pad and he burst to the side of the drill. Watching my video later, I laughed. He moved too fast, my camera pan was too slow.
I did learn what I needed to know about Donald while watching practice that day, and every single day for the next four seasons.
He announced his retirement Friday morning, a bittersweet moment because he is at peace with his choice and we are selfish.
I don’t like the idea of a practice field without him on it. I am also so happy for Donald because he soaked up every single moment of joy he could in 2023, and he is walking away to a beautiful growing family that dissolves him completely from an architect of defensive destruction into a giggling, face-pulling, tag-playing proud dad. He is walking away healthy, so he can be healthy for them. So few get that chance, and they entrap themselves in an unending cycle of physical ruin to play the sport they love. I am so proud of Aaron Donald, as humble a voice as mine is to add to the chorus of Hall of Famers and current stars who showed their respect for his 10-year, 111-sack career, for making this decision with clarity.
“There will never be another Aaron Donald,” Rams GM Les Snead said, and while his simply phrased comment was a homage to Donald’s trademark succinctness, Snead is understating it.
Because here’s what you should know about Donald, and what I understood as a permanent truth the first time I saw him do a drill in a practice: He showed up.Nobody outworked Donald, even when he reached his illustrious prime years and got his $135 million contract extension. In the grueling days of summer practices, he’d get there first and hit the tackling dummies. He’d be drenched with sweat by the time others arrived. If you thought you were working hard, somewhere out there on the field was Donald, working even harder and showing you what it looked like to reach the extra gears — the ones that click toward “special.” A few years ago, the Rams created “veteran rest days” for Donald so that their offensive line could string a real practice together, as catalytic a force as he could be even in that setting. He didn’t need the rest.
He showed up for his teammates. Donald didn’t miss a game to injury until 2022, and he still played through a high ankle sprain that needed surgery in Week 12. The season had long imploded, but Donald kept going until he got pulled. He played through torn ribs cartilage in freezing temperatures in Green Bay, and his misery in that playoff loss turned into a white-hot fuel that helped the Rams win Super Bowl LVI. In the Super Bowl, famously, when two game-sealing plays had to be made — Donald made them on third- and fourth-and-1. When the Rams started their sprint rebuild in 2023 and gutted their defense, they left Donald much to carry. All he asked of the front office is that it found players who cared. He showed up for the young guys the Rams brought in, and in many ways found new joy in being around them. Watching Donald soak in this last year of football through the eyes of those who were so fresh and new and full of excitement was a beautiful thing.
He showed up for his family and his community. I’ll never forget the moment I saw Donald, mid-production of a super-sized pregame video shoot at SoFi Stadium complete with Hollywood director and production crew, pulling faces at his kids between takes as they laughed. His “AD99 Solutions” foundation (based in his home city of Pittsburgh) has provided resources, camps and mental/physical programming to youth in vulnerable populations since 2019. The organization cites 450 hours of annual programming at no cost to families across 34 states. He never asked for promotion or fanfare or awards or honors or nominations — he just showed up, and he did the work.
Aaron Donald: A Hall of Fame careerDonald showed up for himself. His NFL career was a constant push toward the next move, the next edge, the next level of greatness. Watching Donald restlessly, relentlessly hone his technique even if it looked perfect already — repping again, again, again — was a marvel. Donald has been an all-time great for a long time, but because he so loved the process of getting great, he falls into an entirely separate category.
For those who got to see it — including his head coach since 2017, Sean McVay — it was altering. To this day, Donald has no idea he helped McVay through one of the worst points of his life by sharing a simple phrase: “Work works.” He showed up for McVay, right then and there, and then went about his day as naturally as breathing.I have no doubt in my mind I am a better reporter, journalist and writer for having covered Donald — who for all he is and forever will be in the sport, is also just a nice dude who is great to talk with about football. To watch Donald show up in all of these ways for years and not strive to work harder would be to not have a pulse.
Why Kamren Curl is the Washington Commanders’ most important defensive player
The NFL draft is largely unpredictable in most aspects, and that applies to every round. Teams never really know how good — or bad — a player will be at the next level.
But while success in the league typically gets harder to achieve the later a player is picked, there are still plenty of examples of draftees severely outperforming their draft slots. Washington Commanders’ safety Kamren Curl is near the top of that list.
The then-Washington Football Team selected Curl in the seventh round of the 2020 NFL Draft. Since then, he has done nothing but prove everyone wrong. He’s played at least 700 snaps in each of his first three years, all while finishing as a top-30 safety by PFF grade each year. In 2022, he earned the second-highest grade at the position in the NFL and was the only safety to earn at least an 80.0 PFF grade in run defense, tackling and coverage.
It turned out to be harder to find an advanced statistic that Curl didn’t place in the top 10 in.
Advanced Statistic Stat (rank/eligible players) Missed Tackle Rate 4.7% (T-6th/69) Average Depth of Tackle 3.9 (2nd/64) Run-Stop Rate 5.7% (4th/64) Man Coverage Grade 75.7 (2nd/65) Zone Coverage Grade 74.5 (9th/65) Curl is now not only one of the best all-around safeties in the NFL but also one of Washington’s most important players. When he’s not on the field, the defense isn’t nearly the same. He was forced to miss the first two weeks and the last four weeks of the 2022 season with injuries, and Washington’s defense struggled mightily.
With Curl (W3-15) Without Curl (W1,2,16,17) EPA per play (rank) -0.061 (7th) 0.058 (29th) Scoring Drive Allowed % (rank) 28.9% (3rd) 46.8% (30th) Successful Play Allowed % (rank) 31.8% (5th) 34.3% (17th) *Note: Week 18 was omitted due to it being a backup-heavy, meaningless game between Washington and Dallas.
Curl showed in his first regular-season action as a rookie that he was going to be at and around the line of scrimmage making plays.
This is such a good play by Kam Curl. Recognizes the screen, works around the guard and makes a beautiful tackle.
Curl finished the game with a 74.4 coverage grade which was the 2nd highest on the team, #WashingtonFootball pic.twitter.com/1KDybrfud4
— Nick Akridge (@PFF_NickAkridge) September 15, 2020
Tackling, in particular, was a significant area of improvement for Curl in 2022. He made a massive jump from his rookie season to his third year in limiting his missed tackles and went from ranking in the top 10 in most missed tackles as a rookie to the top 10 in fewest missed tackles this past season.
As a rookie, Curl displayed veteran-like tendencies in terms of always knowing where to be. He just needed to focus on finishing the plays. And last year, he did.
His continued improvement in man coverage also stands out. Much like Curl’s missed tackle rate, his man coverage grade was a different beast in his rookie season compared to this past season. He went from being a middle-of-the-pack man coverage defender to one of the NFL’s best.
Curl had shown some flashes but lacked the consistency needed to play in the slot as much as he did.
Kam Curl has been fantastic for Washington this year, but if he can develop to the point where he can do this consistently, then Washington has a real player in him. Works over Aiyuk in the slot, who runs an out. Matches the route perfectly while reading QB, gets the PBU pic.twitter.com/fK2fPvA5gu
— Mark Bullock (@MarkBullockNFL) December 15, 2020
That changed this past year when he finished with the second-highest man coverage grade among safeties. He’s taken two weaknesses in his game and turned them into strengths, all of a sudden spearheading a Washington defense that has been one of the NFL’s best over the past couple of seasons.
Curl’s biggest strength has always been his ability to not only play multiple positions but excel in those positions.
A big positive for Washington on Sunday was Kam Curl. Played a variety of roles and did well. 1st play of this clip, covers TE on over route, undercuts it to break it up. 2nd play, works from deep to cut a crosser and break that up too pic.twitter.com/Tv2qVQieVd
— Mark Bullock (@MarkBullockNFL) September 15, 2021
He plays everywhere for Washington, which allows the defense to give offenses multiple looks without a drop-off in the quality of play. The coaching staff knows he can excel in every coverage role they ask of him while also not losing any strength in the run game. Despite his frame, he’s never been afraid to throw his body around at the line of scrimmage.
Take a look at this play from Curl’s rookie season. The angle doesn’t do it justice, but he tracks the running back through three separate gaps to eventually make the tackle. It’s an incredible display of patience to not shoot the gap too early. He starts by covering the strongside A-gap, then moves to the weakside A-gap and finally makes the play in the weakside B-gap.
Washington’s strength has always been its defensive line. Jonathan Allen has been one of the most dominant defensive tackles in the NFL for multiple seasons now. Daron Payne and Montez Sweat are both coming off their most productive seasons, and a healthy Chase Young, who won Defensive Rookie of the Year in his last full season, is back in the fold. That’s four first-round picks starting on one position unit. But despite all of that firepower up front, the most important member of that defense is arguably the former seventh-round draft pick Curl.
He’s up for a contract extension after this season, and while Washington has shown it isn’t afraid to pay its homegrown defensive talent, it’s time to retain Curl for the long haul.
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