Before making his NFL return with the Los Angeles Rams ahead of the 2026 season, Aaron Donald had played in 154 regular-season games and recorded 111 sacks. His sack total could have been even higher if it wasn’t for the Philadelphia Eagles, especially their former center, Jason Kelce.

For broader context, Kelce would immediately help the defense against Donald rather than simply staying with his assigned defender. While that was something that made Donald hate playing against the Eagles, Jason Kelce has now revealed how difficult it was for him and his teammates to stop Donald from getting closer to the quarterback.

“People are like, ‘Oh, AD, like, we got to get the kill center.’ Guys, I didn’t do shit against Aaron Donald. He was a three-technique,” said Kelce on the New Heights podcast. “All I did was literally slide and help the guard. That’s what I did. We double-team him every…snap. We did not leave him one-on-one.”

Throughout his NFL career, Donald played five times against the Eagles. During the stretch, the three-time Defensive Player of the Year recorded 5 solo tackles, 10 total tackles, and 1 tackle for loss. His spectacular sack record numbers, though, were mysteriously absent.

The Eagles remained one of the only two teams out of 32 NFL teams that Donald failed to record a sack against. The other team was the New York Jets.

Which certainly raised a question: How did the Eagles stop Donald?

If we put it simply, the Eagles used a combination of slide protection, double teams, as Kelce explained, triple teams, chip blocks, and quick passes. In simple terms, it was rare for quarterback Jalen Hurts to drop back without Donald being accounted for by multiple bodies at the same time.

As the Eagles’ technique stopped Donald from getting near the quarterback, the defensive tackle got frustrated. In fact, just a couple of years ago, Donald sat down on the Green Light with Chris Long Podcast and explained why he hated playing against the Eagles and Jason Kelce.

“I hated playing against Philly,” said Donald. “(Jason) Kelce…always ran full — he would snap the ball and run over right now and just — I’m like, ‘Bro, you got some good guards. Let them work. You don’t gotta help them every time.’ He’s like, ‘I’m letting you — we’re not gonna let you ruin the game.’ Every time I played the Eagles, bro, I never got no one on ones. I probably had like one or two during the game and that would be it.”

The strategy against Donald always worked for the Eagles, as the team went 4-1 against the Rams during Donald’s era. The only win came as the Rams outperformed the Eagles 37-19 in September 2020. Kelce and the Eagles would later change their normal protection rules because of players like Donald.

“It was even magnified, where the only time we don’t double-team, it was like a five-man protection. I was like, ‘Sorry guys, I got to go over there.’… So, I got to go this way. Even if it was a five-man, five-big-guy, six-man protection with the running back, every team in America against any other team, you’re making a five call or poke like the five of line are going to block the five big guys. We said…. We’re sliding Aaron Donald…That’s crazy. So, like, this is the reality of what we went through and how we changed our protections throughout this week.”

That said, Kelce’s assessment of Donald’s play and the strategies they had to incorporate just to stop him came at a crucial time. Following a two-year break after announcing his retirement, Donald has returned to play one more season with the Rams.

He signed a one-year, $20 million deal and will join Myles Garrett on the Rams’ defensive line. And as the Rams put it after his return, “Quarterbacks Scramble.”