Aaron Donald’s return for the Los Angeles Rams was never going to be a simple matter of stepping back onto an NFL field. The 35-year-old had not played a regular-season snap in 982 days, and the Rams deliberately held him out of their Week 1 trip to Australia before finally unleashing him against the New York Giants. But while Donald certainly made an immediate impact in his return, NFL legend Warren Sapp is skeptical that the defensive end will find his true self again.
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“It’s definitely not the Aaron Donald or the Aaron Donald that he used to be, because he’ll never be that again,” said Sapp in a conversation with Chris Simms. “He’s not that age. You can’t twist that body like that. And that’s what I’m talking about. That jab when you flip that thing, you got to go, baby.
“You got you flipping those hips. You’re stepping through and you’re going that. Listen, you got some WD40, a whole bunch of reps. That’s the only two ways. And I don’t think he runs off gasoline and motor oil, so it’s going to be a whole bunch of reps. He’s just got to get his body back to doing what he does, because once you trust your eyes, the hands and feet will follow.”
Sapp’s assessment comes with plenty of context, considering how Donald’s game is affected after his retirement and a two-year hiatus. At 35 years old, Donald is also attempting to reproduce the same explosive movements that made him one of the most dominant defensive players of his generation.
But after a lengthy time off, getting his body accustomed to the speed and physical demands of the play was always going to take time. Although there were signs of his trademark explosiveness in Donald’s first game back.
He finished the night with three tackles and a tackle for loss. Meanwhile, his 27.8% pass-rush win rate ranked among the best among interior defensive linemen that week, per PFF. Those numbers suggest that the initial burst Sapp was referring to has not simply disappeared, even after Donald’s extended absence.
However, Donald’s overall pass-rushing production also showed why Sapp believes the veteran needs more repetitions before he can look completely comfortable again. Aaron Donald played 32 defensive snaps against the Giants, including 19-pass-rush snaps. But he scored only one pressure.
In other words, he was still winning individual moments and showing the ability to explode off the line, but he wasn’t consistently turning that initial movement into the kind of disruption that defined his prime. The Rams, meanwhile, appeared to be managing Donald’s workload carefully in his first game back as well.
Ahead of the Week 2 matchup, Aaron Donald acknowledged that his live 11-on-11 work was something he needed after spending so much time away from actual football competition.
“Kind of getting in the groove of things, understanding everything a lot better out there playing a lot more free, a lot more loose, and looking more like myself to me,” the 35-year-old said.
That said, while his first appearance provided encouraging flashes, there is still a significant difference between showing the burst of the old Aaron Donald and consistently playing like the version who dominated offensive lines for years.