Aaron Donald is back, and the Rams are loading up for another run.
After more than a month of speculation, the three-time Defensive Player of the Year is coming out of retirement and returning to Los Angeles on a one-year, $20 million deal with incentives that could push it to $30 million, according to an ESPN report. The team announced the move, ending the wait after Donald last played in the NFL in 2023.
The comeback had been building for weeks. Donald, 35, hinted at the possibility in June after the Rams traded for Myles Garrett, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year. “for sure got me thinking,” he said then, adding that he wanted to see if “that fire can light back up.” He took a major step toward a return on Aug. 5 when he worked out with the Rams, then tried out again 11 days later.
Now the reunion is real, and it gives Los Angeles a defensive front that looks monstrous on paper. Donald and Garrett have combined for five Defensive Player of the Year awards and 236.5 sacks, a pairing that immediately brings to mind the Rams’ famed “Fearsome Foursome” from the 1960s, when Deacon Jones and Merlin Olsen anchored the line.
Donald’s résumé already stands among the best the league has seen. Drafted 13th overall in 2014, he spent 10 dominant seasons with the Rams and piled up a franchise-record 111 sacks.
He opened his career with 10 straight Pro Bowl selections, joining Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders as the only players to do that, and earned nine All-Pro nods. He also took home Defensive Player of the Year honors in 2017, 2018 and 2020, becoming one of only three players to win the award three times, alongside J.J.
Watt and Lawrence Taylor.
Pro Football Reference rates Donald as the highest-rated defensive tackle in its history, ahead of Hall of Famers Bob Lilly, Randy White, Alan Page and Joe Greene.
His first decade in Los Angeles lined up with the Rams’ rise back into contention. In 2017, after the team had won just 17 games across Donald’s first three seasons there, he helped deliver the franchise’s first division title since 2003.
The next year, he led the NFL with a career-high 20.5 sacks and powered the Rams to their first Super Bowl appearance since the 2001 season. Los Angeles gave up only 13 points in that game and still fell to the Patriots in Super Bowl LIII.
Three years later, the ending was very different. In Super Bowl LVI, the Rams defense erased a 17-point deficit and then held the Bengals scoreless over the final 25 minutes. Donald had two sacks and delivered the key hurry on Joe Burrow’s final offensive snap, helping seal the Rams’ 23-20 win.
Donald had considered retirement after that Super Bowl victory, but he came back for the 2022 season, which ended early because of injury. In 2023, he looked like himself again, finishing with eight sacks as the Rams made the playoffs. He retired two months after the team’s loss to the Lions in the NFC wild card round.
“For 10 years, I have been fortunate to play the game of football at the highest level,” Donald wrote in his retirement post. “I'm thankful for the people I've met along the way, the friendships I've built, and the things I've accomplished with my teammates and individually.”
Two years later, he’s back with a Rams team that has real Super Bowl expectations. Los Angeles reached the NFC title game last season, and the roster now includes Donald, Garrett, former Chiefs All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie, former All-Pro receiver Davante Adams, fellow wideout Puka Nacua and quarterback Matthew Stafford, the reigning league MVP.
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