Defensive Rookie of the Year, three Defensive Player of the Year awards, 10x Pro Bowl selections, and eight-time First-Team All-Pro selections. Based on the accolades, this guy sounds like the greatest player to ever go against an offense. Aaron Donald was selected 13th overall in the 2014 NFL draft, little did the Rams know, they would be picking up a top three Defensive Tackle in history.
March 15, 2024. Aaron Donald posts on X.
“For 10 years, I have been fortunate to play the game of football at the highest level. I’m thankful for the people I’ve met along the way, the friendships I’ve built and the things I’ve accomplished with my teammates and individually.”
When the news broke out, everyone who had seen it or heard of it from other sources was mostly in shock. Fans of the NFL know how dominant and incredible a player Donald was. Being one of the three players in history to have three Defensive Player of the Year awards, the other two being JJ Watt and Lawrence Taylor; it was already clear that he will easily be in the hall of fame when he retires. Starting his first season in the NFL, Aaron Donald recorded an incredible 48 combined tackles and nine sacks, which won him his first out of many accolades. Beating out the other incredible players in the voting for the defensive rookie such as Khalil Mack and C.J Mosely, he won with a 50% vote.
Plenty of people recently have begun to say that Donald has become “washed” or “worse.” But in reality that isn’t the case; retiring was simply a choice he made for himself, not because he didn’t have faith in himself. Plenty of film suggests that his stats this year are poor. Being constantly double-teamed by top offensive lines such as the Ravens, he still is a dominant player. You simply have to give the man his roses, putting up 53 total tackles and eight sacks in his tenth season, he isn’t declining as much as a lot would say.
However, Aaron Donald was already past his due date, having wanted to retire after getting his first Super Bowl ring, which initially was his goal, hadn’t happened due to the head coach Sean McVay convincing him to stay a couple more seasons and play with the Rams for a few more years.
Now why exactly do I and many other people say that Aaron Donald is the GOAT? When there are plenty of other players such as Mean Joe Green or even Reggie White, it’s truly hard to decide who ranks number one. But when you consider the accolades you also take the fact that there is way less recency bias when it comes to “who is the best?” Aaron Donald truly is the best there has ever been for the Defensive Tackle Position.
