Aaron Donald would have reportedly been fine with retirement if the Los Angeles Rams didn’t restructure his contract. While he’s only 31 years old, it wasn’t hard to understand why he’d feel that way.
In eight years as a pro he’d been a first-team All-Pro seven times. He was 2014’s defensive rookie of the year and has won defensive player of the year honors three times. He’s ranked among the top five vote getters in DPOY consideration every year since his debut.
So with a Lombardi Trophy secure and nearly $100 million in career earnings on his ledger, riding into a life where his Sundays are no longer filled with double- and triple-teams made sense. But the Rams, eager to defend their world championship and armed with a remarkable disdain for both the salary cap and traditional, draft-heavy roster-building strategies, didn’t like that idea.
