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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Doug Farrar

Aaron Donald does Aaron Donald things against the Buccaneers’ weak link

In our divisional round preview detailing how the Buccaneers could fend off the Rams, we posited that Aaron Donald had a season-high 18 snaps at the edge in Los Angeles’ 34-24 Week 3 win over the Bucs, and with right tackle Tristan Wirfs out of the rematch due to a high ankle sprain, backup Josh Wells could be the Bucs’ vulnerability — especially if defensive coordinator Raheem Morris decided to put Donald on the defensive left side, leaving one-on-ones with Wells that could not work at all for Tom Brady.

It did not take long for Morris to stack this one up. With 7:30 left in the first quarter, Donald lined up right over Wells with no help (!!!), and the utterly predictable thing happened. Brady barely escaped a sack on an incomplete pass to Mike Evans.

Donald had a sack of Brady off the edge from the other side in Week 3, beating Rob Gronkowski and left tackle Donovan Smith…

…and Wells got absolutely demolished by Eagles pass-rusher Ryan Kerrigan for this sack in Tampa Bay’s wild-card win.

The Bucs are either going to have to give Wells some kind of chip help when Donald aligns outside, or up the level of Brady’s life insurance.

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