Aaron Donald and the standard for greatness

(News4usonline) – The point of attack for the Los Angeles Rams on defense begins and ends with Aaron Donald. The seven-time All-Pro disrupts and everyone else is left scrambling trying to get out of his way. That formula has worked with much success since Donald joined the Rams back in 2014.

The Rams are Super Bowl champs largely because of the play of Donald. With Super Bowl LVI riding on last-minute drama, it was Donald who settled the matter when he broke through the offensive line of the Cincinnati Bengals to get to quarterback Joe Burrow, who wound up firing a blank pass on fourth down to essentially hand the Rams the championship.

It was yet another “get out of my way” moment for Donald, who has a long history of those plays.

“We had made a third-down stop,” Donald said at that time. “Fourth down, I thought they would run, but they dropped back to pass. Found a way to get the chop-club and bend the edge and found a way to get to the quarterback and make him threw an errand pass. I actually tried to get the ball out, but he threw it up so I was a little nervous at first. It was a huge play. It was a great few stops for the defense that we made leading up to that. I think we started taking over the game up front when we needed to. We’re world champs.”

It was a big moment for both the Rams and Donald. So much so that the eight-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle was near to calling it quits before he wound up signing a contract extension in the offseason. When he arrived at this season’s training camp, Donald had already put the team’s Super Bowl accomplishment from last season in the rearview mirror.

“It’s a whole new season,” Donald said at the onset of training camp. “It’s a whole new team. So, you can’t live off of what you did in past years. That’s old now. Obviously, it was an amazing accomplishment we did, but it’s the past now. So, we are in the future, and we are trying to do everything we can to get ready for the upcoming season this year. So, talking about the past is not going to help us win games. Doing what we need to do right now, living in the moment right now, that’s what we have to do.” 

It is indeed a new season. However, while some things change, some things remain the same. For opposing offenses that generally has not been a good thing over the past eight years as it pertains to seeing No. 99 lining up on the opposite side of the ball. When Jay-Z raps about having “99 Problems,” he’s not talking about Donald, but offenses facing the Rams know what time it is.

Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray would probably vouch for that. A week before the Cardinals played the Rams, they fell into a 23-0 hole to the Las Vegas Raiders. That deficit would turn out to be another stage for Murray, football’s version of Harry Houdini to work his magic. 

Although he only passed for 277 yards and ran for another 28 on the ground, Murray mesmerized the NFL world with some dazzling plays at the end of the game that eventually led the Cardinals to a near-impossible 29-23 overtime win, shocking the Raiders and just about everybody else. 

Heavy hitters. ? pic.twitter.com/0tS8eBbuDt

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) September 25, 2022

Murray’s 20-second scramble on a 2-point conversion to send the game into overtime will down in NFL lore as one of the great impromptu plays in the history of the league. Fast forward to the challenge the Donald and Rams knew what they were facing when head coach Sean McVay and Los Angeles traveled to Arizona to play the Cardinals in an NFC West matchup.     

The last time these two teams played each other, the Rams kept Murray in check to win an NFC playoff game last season. Before the Rams went on the road and played the Cardinals, McVay was broached with the question if there was one particular way of containing quarterback Murray.  

“That’s a hell of a question,” McVay remarked during one of his weekly press conferences. “I don’t think so. He’s so dynamic because he can beat you in so many different ways. They’ve obviously got a good scheme. Anytime that you’re talking about a guy that can beat you with his arm, with his legs and with his brain, those are always the most challenging things to defend, but it’s his ability to be able to create on schedule, off schedule is really a challenge. Keeping his eyes down the field extending plays, the play is never over.” 

“You’ve got to do a great job being able to rush as one, really all 11 playing on the same page,” McVay added. “He certainly stresses you out defensively. I don’t know if there’s one all-encompassing way. The best way to slow any offense down is (to) be efficient on those early downs if they’re trying to run the football and doing a great job of applying pressure to the quarterback as it relates to rushing the quarterback and playing good coverage on the second and third levels.”

BIG PLAY BY DK!

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— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) September 25, 2022

Being able to cut off running lanes on a serial scrambler like Murray also helps. It also helps to have Donald chasing down the versatile signal-caller. Trying to box in Murray takes both containment and schematic planning, Donald said a couple of days before the Rams walked into State Farm Stadium and claimed a 20-12 win.

“It’s a little bit of both,” Donald said. “Obviously, he’s able to do a lot of different things being mobile. He’s a tough guy to get to. He’s able to run around and extend plays and find guys downfield. So, obviously, we play him every year, twice a year, so we know what to expect. So, just doing what we need to do to contain him in, make him uncomfortable and trying to get to him.”

Donald and the Rams seemed to be able to apply all of what McVay talked about in order to secure the road win against the Cardinals. Although he passed for 314 yards against the Rams, it took Murray throwing the football 58 times to get those numbers. 

The Rams’ defense put enough pressure on Murray to notch two sacks and keep the Arizona quarterback from going wild running the football. Murray finished the game with a grand total of eight yards rushing on two carries.

“I thought our front did a really great job of applying pressure, keeping an outstanding athlete like Kyler bottled up,” McVay said.

One of the takedowns of Murray in the game against Arizona came at the hands of Donald, who recorded his 100th career sack. A day after Donald and the Rams had bottled up Murray and Arizona’s explosive offense, McVay was asked if he could ever run out of great things to say about the three-time AP Defensive Player of the Year. McVay was blunt in his response.    

“No, no. It never gets old,” McVay remarked. “I think you can’t find the appropriate ways to articulate the great things is usually what it is. That’s why you’ve heard me talk about before when people ask me about Aaron, it’s however great you think he is, he’s even better than what you think, no matter how highly you think of him.”

McVay continued, “For him to have his hundredth career sack yesterday in the manner at which he’s gotten it done with the attention that’s paid to him week in and week out, going into three games into his ninth year in the NFL, it’s one of the reflections of what makes him so special because the way he can impact the game. What people don’t talk about is you’re getting that kind of production, but in spite of the attention that he has, to still be able to produce to me is what’s as amazing as anything else.”

If there ever was an unstoppable force to come along in the NFL, Donald would be the perfect poster pitchman for that slogan. Donald’s greatness is not measured in the numbers he has put up throughout the years. He has attained being the best at what he does despite the incredible numbers he has put up.

Now in his ninth season, Donald was ranked as the No. 2 player in the league among his peers in an NFL Top 100 list. It’s kind of hard to imagine another player being as consistently dominant as Donald has been. And when he’s on, so are the Rams. What makes him so great? Well, that’s something that’s simply in his DNA, McVay said.

“I think certain people just have an intrinsic motivation and a drive that they’re always filling their tank up.,” said McVay. “I think that his standards for himself, the type of competitor he is and how he’s innately wired, I think that’s a special trait that he’s probably always had. I think he’d be better equipped to answer it, but I know nobody has higher standards for Aaron Donald than he does of himself, and that’s pretty consistent amongst any great competitor that’s truly driven.”

“You get all these extrinsic rewards, but whether it was the contracts that he’s earned over the course of his career, winning the Super Bowl, he’s driven to be great because he wants to be great for himself, he wants to be great for his family, for his teammates, for his coaches,” McVay added. “That to me is one of those separators where you’re just innately wired that way. I don’t think that’s something that you can teach or coach. I think you either are or you aren’t, and Aaron certainly is.”

Featured Image Caption: Los Angeles Rams defensive end Aaron Donald (99) is coming for Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray (1) in a game played on Sept. 25, 2022. Donald recorded his 100th career sack in the Rams’ 20-12 win against Murray and Arizona. Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Rams