Aaron Donald has won just about every award available to a defensive lineman during his spectacular eight-year career with the Los Angeles Rams.
And as he himself mentions, the only trophy missing is one named after Vince Lombardi.
“It’s the only thing I’ve been chasing,” Donald, a three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, said Monday.
On the day, the Rams began the week that will conclude as hosts of the Super Bowl.
At 30 years old, Donald is still at the optimum level of a formidable performance that has led him to seven All-Pro selections. But he’s also mature enough to understand that any Super Bowl could be the last for a player, even if he’s considered the best defensive player of his generation.
Something interesting has happened during the Rams’ run through the NFC playoffs. Donald’s teammates and coaches have embraced their player’s latest feat as a rallying cry.
Although Donald is not a veteran who is in the twilight of his career or clearly facing his last chance at a title, giving him that crowning has become a challenge for the team, as Sunday’s game approaches. .
“Everybody in this building wants to win for Aaron Donald, to add to his legacy and what he’s done,” defensive coordinator Raheem Morris said. “Our people from public relations, community relations and football, those in the training room, the players, their brothers, we all want to win for Aaron Donald.”
Regardless of his talents, the Rams clearly have respect and admiration for what Donald does off the field.
Von Miller raised the challenge shortly before the Rams entered the postseason. The Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl 50 considered it important to help Donald have his own Super Bowl ring.
Miller has repeated that wish in the weeks since. He claims the Rams talk about this in the locker room.
“Selfishly, I want to be the guy that helps Aaron Donald win the Super Bowl,” Miller said. “When he gets on stage in Canton (the Hall of Fame), he’s going to have to say, ‘Man, when Von Miller came on the team, things changed! That’s why I want to do this.”
Jalen Ramsey, the All-Star cornerback, is another pillar of Los Angeles’ defense. And early in the postseason, he said the same thing Miller did. Odell Beckham Jr. and other Rams figures have brought up the subject ever since.
Naturally, the Rams (15-5) want to beat the Cincinnati Bengals because that would cap a half-decade of growth under coach Sean McVay. The strategist’s arrival ended three seasons in which Donald had been a typical case of a good player on a bad team—perhaps wondering if he should chart a path to move to another team where he would have a better chance of winning.
Friendly and approachable, Donald has played long enough to earn the respect of the NFL and to inspire the players who come after him.
“Words cannot express the way that feels. Hearing these things from your brothers and peers,” Donald said. “You do everything in your power to help them win and to make them say they’re going to help me achieve something. That’s a big thing. It’s a blessing that my peers had so much love for me to do that. It is an achievement that we can have and that will be eternal, that we will not forget and that will unite us forever”.