{"id":456813,"date":"2026-09-08T03:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T03:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/456813\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T03:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T03:12:11","slug":"aaron-donald-pleased-with-progress-as-rams-opener-nears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/456813\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Donald pleased with progress as Rams’ opener nears"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than a week after coming out of retirement for the Los Angeles Rams<\/a>, defensive tackle Aaron Donald<\/a> said he feels like he “never left.”<\/p>\n

Donald, who initially retired in March 2024, came out of retirement on August 30. He took part in individual drills that day but did not do 11-on-11 until September 6.<\/p>\n

“It’s been good,” Donald said. “It’s better than what I thought it would be, honestly. Things are clicking a little faster. I’m feeling good, knocking the rust off. I thought I’d be a lot more rusty then I was, but taking it day by day.”<\/p>\n

Donald declined to say whether he will play in the Week 1 opener against the San Francisco 49ers<\/a> in Melbourne, Australia. Rams head coach Sean McVay has said the Rams will take it a day at a time with Donald.<\/p>\n

“I’m feeling really good,” Donald said when asked whether he’d play in Melbourne. “I’m feeling great. Coming up with a game plan and will see what’s going on, but I’m telling you, I feel great.”<\/p>\n

Donald said he thought he would be “a little all over the place” when returning to team drills for the first time since he retired, but he “settled in.”<\/p>\n

“A couple plays I was a little rusty,” Donald said. “It isn’t where I want to be, but it’s pretty damn good, if you ask me. To not play football in two years, to be moving how I’m moving, like I said, it’s really no drop off. It’s not where I want to be because I can see it and I know there are things that I want to clean up and I’m going to clean up. The more reps I do, the more I play, it’ll get there. But he’s still there.”<\/p>\n

Donald said his goal is to get himself to “that top tier” that he wants to be at.<\/p>\n

Top Stories<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“I never do anything to be average,” Donald said. “I want to be good. Everything I do I try to be great. That’s my mindset. That’s the way I go about my work. That’s the way I’m built. I can’t help that.”<\/p>\n

On Monday, Donald did not practice, instead doing a cardio workout. Donald told reporters, “I’m 35, I didn’t play football in two years so you have to be smart. Even if I feel good, you still have to be smart.” Donald said he would be back at practice on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula was asked Monday whether it’s been a challenge to figure out how to fit Donald into his defensive scheme.<\/p>\n

“It’s a challenge I’ll take anytime,” Shula said. “No, we’re taking it day-by-day and we’re just trying to get him acclimated to the defense. At the end of the day, football is football. I know it’s been about two years, but we expect him to hit the ground running and we’ll see what happens.”<\/p>\n

Regardless of whether Donald plays in Australia, it’s clear that he won’t be taking on the same workload that he did in his final season. In 2023, Donald played 81% of the Rams’ defensive snaps.<\/p>\n

“Whatever my role is, I’m going to go out there and play at a high level, do my part,” Donald said. “It’s a team sport. That’s the best thing about it. I don’t have to worry about playing 70, 60 snaps when you have a group like this. There’s no pressure on me. I can just go out there, play free, play ball. Let the game come to me, play with the guys around me. Help them, they help me. Hopefully we have a lot of success this season.”<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than a week after coming out of retirement for the Los Angeles Rams, defensive tackle Aaron Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[180249,180248,750,6446,100,752,101,296,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-456813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-180249","tag-donald-aaron","tag-espn","tag-los-angeles-rams","tag-news","tag-nfl","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}