(Photo: Fox News)
When I first started playing organized football, as every kid wanted, I attempted to try out for Quarterback. You can throw the tightest of spirals possible, but other things must factor into being a successful Quarterback such as timing, release, and getting rid of the ball quickly. My coach would end up moving me to Offensive Tackle which I loved. The following year which was my second year, I made the full transition to the defensive side and that is where my defensive background comes from today all these years later. I grew up watching Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Troy Polamalu, Warren Sapp, Michael Strahan, Deion Sanders, Charles Woodson, and Champ Bailey and that’s only some of the great defensive players I’ve seen play over the years. In 2014, the football world was introduced to a young man named Aaron Donald, a star Defensive Tackle from the University of Pittsburgh. The St. Louis Rams drafted him with the 13th overall pick in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft. After 10 seasons in the NFL and 32 years of age, the star defender has decided to call it a career and retire.
Aaron is one of the five greatest defensive players I’ve had the privilege of watching. He was truly in a class of his own and I hadn’t seen a guy dominate from the interior of the defensive line maybe since the days of Warren Sapp. I often compared Aaron to another Hall of Famer John Randle, but he was 20 pounds lighter than John ever was. He was simply dominant and was always regarded as one of the five best defensive players in the league. Aaron was one of those defensive players that had each attribute. He was competitive, powerful, gave 100 percent, and left everything on the field. Most importantly, he was explosive and had some of the best leverage from a Defensive Lineman since the days of Reggie White who’s also one of the greatest ever to play the position. Most guys who play on the interior or even on the line as a whole are bigger and taller. Aaron was undersized standing at only six feet tall and weighed 280 pounds, but that meant absolutely nothing as he would have his way with Offensive Linemen who towered over him and weighed over 300 pounds! Aaron did that routinely. He was also blessed to do everything as he had the quickness to burst right past anyone in his way, he could run through you or even go underneath with the dip and I always said he played on the inside with the technique of an Offensive Lineman and Defensive End because he knew how to lower himself more than the man in front of him and he also had the first step which allowed him to always win his battles. You could try to get big on him, but that would simply allow him to slide past you. Aaron played with the kill-or-be-killed mentality. One thing I always noticed when watching him was how violent he was with his hands as he was very active and knew how to rip through people and shed blocks. I don’t think this man had a single weakness on the football field.
His resume speaks for itself. Aaron was named Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2014, an eight-time first-team All-Pro, and a three-time Defensive Player of the Year which tied him with J.J. Watt and Lawrence Taylor, and in all ten seasons he played, he was a Pro Bowler and only two men have accomplished that: Barry Sanders and Aaron Donald. He’s also a Super Bowl champion. If you want to see just how great he was, go watch the postseason highlights of the Rams’ Super Bowl run. He closed the door for the Rams to clinch the NFC with a big-time play and in the Super Bowl two weeks later against the Bengals, he does the same thing. Just how great was he? Teams elected to triple-team him. I always said you were special when you were the first name that came up in gameplans and you were a defender. I loved every second I got to watch him play. Congratulations Aaron on a phenomenal career. I’ll see you in Canton five years from now.
