{"id":457635,"date":"2026-09-08T23:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T23:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/457635\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T23:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T23:12:15","slug":"aaron-donald-will-not-play-for-rams-in-season-opener-vs-49ers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/457635\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Donald will not play for Rams in season opener vs. 49ers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Defensive lineman Aaron Donald<\/a> will not travel with the Rams to Melbourne<\/a> to play in their season opener against the San Francisco 49ers, coach Sean McVay<\/a> said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Donald, who rejoined the Rams last month<\/a> after a two-year retirement, wouldn\u2019t confirm if he was planning to play in the season opener when asked multiple times by reporters on Monday, only saying he was \u201cfeeling really good. Feeling great.\u201d<\/p>\n

The development isn\u2019t surprising considering McVay and his assistants weren\u2019t pushing Donald to play. Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula said Monday that the team was taking a \u201cday-to-day\u201d approach regarding Donald\u2019s status.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019ll be ready to go sooner rather than later, but we\u2019re making a decision that we think is best for him and for our team,\u201d McVay said<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s attacked this the right way, but it would have been a really quick turnaround.\u201d<\/p>\n

One person who might be surprised about Donald not playing is 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan. He told reporters Sunday he \u201cdefinitely\u201d expected Donald to play.<\/p>\n

Rams players and staff are scheduled to leave Los Angeles for Melbourne on Tuesday night, arriving in Australia on Thursday morning. The game will take place on Friday at 10:35 a.m. local time (5:35 p.m. PDT Thursday), with the Rams planning to fly back to L.A. soon afterward.<\/p>\n

Barring any setback, Donald should play Sept. 21 when the Rams face the New York Giants at SoFi Stadium.<\/p>\n

One player who is expected to take the field at Melbourne Cricket Ground<\/a> is Myles Garrett<\/a>. McVay said the star defensive end will be \u201cready to go\u201d after a left knee problem kept him out of practice for multiple weeks before he returned Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been smart with Myles … but his impact has been tremendous, his overall vibe, what kind of teammate he\u2019s been,\u201d McVay said. \u201cAnd so looking forward to getting him out there with the guys and being a great factor for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garrett did not practice Tuesday, but said he feels \u201cready\u201d to play.<\/p>\n

In addition to Garrett, cornerback Jaylen Watson<\/a> also appeared on the Rams\u2019 first injury report of the season after not practicing because of a toe injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defensive lineman Aaron Donald will not travel with the Rams to Melbourne to play in their season opener…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[11856,77645,21236,6915,10951,180564,2424,48,52,51,47,50,49,83810,1024,42893,32914,11706,27628,11748,427],"class_list":["post-457635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-49er","tag-aaron-donald","tag-approach","tag-australia","tag-coach-sean-mcvay","tag-donald-playing","tag-friday","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-melbourne-cricket-ground","tag-monday","tag-myles-garrett","tag-possibility","tag-ram","tag-san-francisco-49er","tag-season-opener","tag-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457635","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=457635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}