During Sunday night\u2019s game between the Rams and Tampa Bay Buccaneers at SoFi Stadium, the Rams will celebrate the legacy of future Hall of Fame defensive lineman Aaron Donald.<\/p>\n
The first 60,000 in attendance will receive a bobblehead of the retired three-time NFL defensive player of the year, who in January 2022 helped lead the Rams to a victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI at SoFi Stadium.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rams legend Aaron Donald walks on the field at SoFi Stadium before Sunday\u2019s game against the Buccaneers.<\/p>\n
(Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
The Rams will screen a video tribute at halftime, and Donald will host members of the Watts Rams Youth Football program.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty cool,\u201d Donald, an eight-time All-Pro, said of the planned festivities. \u201cJust to be honored, obviously being an old guy, retired now, but still reaping the benefits of what I did when I played, it\u2019s pretty special.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rams selected Donald with the 13th pick in the 2014 NFL draft. Donald amassed 111 sacks, including a career-best 20\u00bd sacks in 2018.<\/p>\n
Donald played his last season in 2023, but his influence on the Rams persists, coach Sean McVay said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best example of leadership is seen, not said,\u201d McVay said. \u201cHe knew when to say the right things, but he just modeled the way every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now Donald is keeping busy with his wife and children, numerous business interests and a charitable foundation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always tell people I feel like I retired and have gotten busier,\u201d he said, \u201cIt\u2019s good to be busy and good to have things in place for our life after football. I\u2019ve been enjoying it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rams defensive front has been especially entertaining, and Donald sees parts of himself in its play.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope some of that meanness wiped off on that D-line,\u201d he said, chuckling.<\/p>\n
The defensive line has extra motivation playing in front of Donald, edge rusher Jared Verse said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s put a show on for him,\u201d Verse said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During Sunday night\u2019s game between the Rams and Tampa Bay Buccaneers at SoFi Stadium, the Rams will celebrate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[18620,217,39967,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,3133,3554,7641,8062,11706,10947,5712,39231,39966,315,39968],"class_list":{"0":"post-67178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-carolina-panthers","9":"tag-day","10":"tag-jump-started-mayfield","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-headlines","13":"tag-la-news","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","16":"tag-los-angeles-news","17":"tag-los-angeles-times","18":"tag-mayfield","19":"tag-odd","20":"tag-practice","21":"tag-prediction","22":"tag-ram","23":"tag-rams","24":"tag-sofi-stadium","25":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneer","26":"tag-then-stalled-career","27":"tag-time","28":"tag-waiver"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67178","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=67178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}