Already the Vegas Super Bowl LXI favorites, the Rams are adding more muscle to their operation. The long-rumored Aaron Donald return is a go. After two years in retirement, the all-time great is coming back.
Hours before the roster-setting deadline, the Rams announced Donald’s return. The 35-year-old defensive tackle agreed to a one-year, $20MM deal that could reach $30MM, NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport and ESPN’s Adam Schefter report.
Donald was tied to $30MM in compensation as part of his three-year, $95MM 2022 raise agreement. Donald played two years on that deal before surprisingly retiring after a dominant 2023 season.
It is not known if Donald will be utilized as much as he was during his otherworldly 10-year first stint as a Ram, and it will probably take some time for the 11th-year vet to build up to form. But Donald has gone through a few workouts with the Rams in preparation for this decision. Nearly three months after the Myles Garrett trade prompted Donald to float the possibility of a return, he is back.
Sean McVay did not speak confidently of a Donald return in recent days, and Schefter adds Donald left the Rams’ facility at noon PT today without indicating he was coming back. With the cutdown deadline approaching, this created natural uncertainty among the Rams if this tantalizing Garrett-Donald reality would actually unfold. But it will. Even if Donald is not quite in peak form, a healthy version of the relentless inside rusher creates what should easily be one of this century’s best NFL rosters.
The Rams found a way to acquire Garrett coming off a record-setting season; the future Hall of Famer managed to eclipse the T.J. Watt/Michael Strahan sack standard while playing on a 5-12 Browns team. That seminal blockbuster deal came weeks after the Rams added All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie from the Chiefs. Yes, the team needed to part with two first-round picks here and ascending edge rusher Jared Verse to set this up, but a Rams team that already had intriguing pieces on the front seven and at safety completed one of the great defensive overhauls of the free agency era.
Donald retired after helping a young Rams team make a somewhat surprising, given the cost-cutting events of the previous offseason, return to the playoffs. The three-time Defensive Player of the Year rebounded from an injury-shortened 2022 season to post eight sacks, 16 tackles for loss and 23 QB hits in his Rams 1.0 finale.
That bounce-back season garnered him a seventh first-team All-Pro accolade. Donald retired after going 10-for-10 in Pro Bowl honors, and regular social media videos have not exactly revealed the Super Bowl-winning defender to be drifting out of shape.
In 2024 Donald contemporary J.J. Watt left the door open to coming back after one season off, but the future CBS mainstay indicated that would be more of a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency situation involving only the Texans or Steelers. Donald, who matched Watt’s DPOY count by winning his third honor in 2020, is trying to come back after two full seasons away. That is highly uncommon in NFL history, adding another must-follow element to what will be a closely observed Rams season.
At the time Donald retired, I made the case he did enough to be considered the greatest interior D-lineman in NFL history. Offensive line restrictions from the eras all-time greats like Joe Greene, Alan Page and Merlin Olsen played in aided those legendary presences for most or all of their respective careers. Donald played in an offense-oriented era and offered a dominance/durability combo that helped the Rams become annual Super Bowl contenders.
Among interior DLs, here are Donald’s Pro Football Focus rankings from 2014-23: second-first-first-first-first-first-first-first-third-second. J.J. Watt may have a claim to a higher peak, but Donald’s superior run of health allowed him to craft one of the greatest resumes of any player in NFL history. He will return to a 111-sack count to go with 176 TFLs.
Kobie Turner and Donald overlapped for the 2023 season, and the Rams added interior D-lineman Braden Fiske in the 2024 second round. Although Los Angeles traded Verse to acquire Garrett, the team still rosters 2025 Pro Bowl edge rusher Byron Young. It will be fascinating to see how the Rams manage Donald’s workload given the form Turner and Fiske have shown. Turner is extension-eligible this year, as part of a breakthrough Rams 2023 draft class, while Fiske becomes eligible for a new deal in January.
I mentioned Olsen in connection with this Donald-Garrett combo earlier this summer, as very few instances of two top-10 all-time D-line presences playing on the same line exist throughout the NFL’s 100-plus-year history. Olsen and sack forefather Deacon Jones is among them. While Garrett and Donald may not quite produce on that level, as both are now over 30 and Donald is coming off a two-year retirement, they have proven to be in the class of those Fearsome Foursome icons of the 1960s and early ’70s. With Turner, Fiske and Young flanking the all-time duo, the Rams are poised to present a menacing pass rush.
Donald played four seasons on a six-year, $135MM extension agreed to before the 2018 season. Using his Super Bowl LVI performance to command a historically rare straight raise without any years being added, Donald signed a three-year, $95MM extension in 2022. The Pitt product had been the NFL’s highest-paid D-tackle from 2018-24, when Chris Jones used Donald’s 2022 rework to eclipse it. As the DT market is now close to $40MM per year (courtesy of the Eagles’ Jalen Carter extension), the Rams will have Donald on what looks like a team-friendly rate.
With the roster deadline fast approaching, the Rams had begun preparing Donald contingency plans. He had conducted at least three workouts with the team, and McVay hinted at more coming. But any work Donald now puts in at the Rams’ facility will not need to be documented on the transaction wire. He will be a member of the team he once powered to a Super Bowl LVI triumph.
Donald made his potential unretirement plan public hours after the Garrett trade went down, but he and McVay had discussed it prior to the Rams landing the two-time Defensive Player of the Year from Cleveland. By late June, Donald was “seriously contemplating” a comeback, and a team that saw its defense provide a letdown in a shootout NFC championship loss to the Seahawks has reloaded in historic fashion. A Garrett-, Donald- and McDuffie-led defense will take aim at the defending champs and other challengers now, while Donald’s arrival should make the Rams heavier favorites — likely adding some disrespect-fueled motivation for the Seahawks as they prepare a repeat bid.
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