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":58203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[7600,166,35634,25441,22572,3284,35636,7020,10435,9470,30074,135,31567,137,136,35042,2393,35635],"class_list":["post-58202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-day","tag-jump-started-mayfield","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-mayfield","tag-odd","tag-practice","tag-prediction","tag-ram","tag-rams","tag-sofi-stadium","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-buccaneer","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-then-stalled-career","tag-time","tag-waiver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}