NFL Hall of Fame player, Aaron Donald, is actually returning to the Rams!

The Hall of Fame induction will be pushed back two or three years because future NFL Hall of Fame player, Aaron Donald, is actually returning to the Rams. Don’t get me wrong, I am wrong about a lot but man was this shoved back in face to be nicer because it was shoved elsewhere considering how wrong this became and honestly, I am not shocked anymore. What is now more than two years from his initial retiring and after we then spent months watching him slowly but sure trickle his way back onto the team. It became real when TMZ took that footage of him on the actual practice field. I then wondered how much he stayed in shape because I know then he started to work out or better yet, he started training for the team.

And, because of how busy I was over the last three weeks and a weekend of constant IT work that just put me out of the writing game those days and weeks. Because in that world of coding, 7 hours goes by at the blink of eye. I then started to write about last Thursday’s game on Friday before that site imploded again, which was against the San Diego Chargers who also calls our stadium as their home, which I hate. The Stadium looks weird when they are in it as the home team. Let alone against the Rams is just odd.

That game went well in the sense that we had no starters play as far as I know play any of the game and not only that, the 3rd and 4th spot players also played most of that game. Ty Simpson played the entire first half. Stetson Bennett sat and then Matthew Caldwell played most of the second half until he got injured. His knee is in bad shape and therefore, it makes dropping a quarterback very easy because we placed him on the injured reserve for the entire 2026 season.

Therefore, our Quarterbacks are set. For now, Ty Simpson will be the third stringer and even though he will be the 2nd string QB in due time and moreover, I am good with him at the Quarterback. He won me over because of his arm strength. I mean zero offense toward Stetson Bennett and his play at all, it’s a different style all together but again, Simpson’s arm is huge. He has a line on that ball like any major quarterback has had or has today.

I did however, see a ton gaps no pun intended, with regard to the Offense Line. It was the first time a Defense was able to tackle a running back for less than 5 yards all preseason. Plus, defenders found those lanes to be able to snag a few players in the backfield but again, we literally had the 3rd, 4th and 5th string players in the entire game as far I know.

With that said, did I mention that the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year is coming out of retirement which in a beautiful world, will make this Rams Defense unstoppable. I am very curious now to see that deptch chart. Let’s look at it:

This confirms what I was getting at because the trade off is clear. Is Aaron Donald a better Defensive Lineman than Poona Ford. I honestly did not think it would be more than that one player being affected however I was also wondering if they syhifted things and moved him around. There were reaklly not any other ways to manuver this to be perfect. Therefore, when you look at it that way, the $20,000,000 one year deal is a bit more viable even though i have no clue where we rea getting that money. I did not think we had more than $15,000,000 to play with after June’ish this summer. Donald by the way, is now 35, signed this deal that can be worth up to $30 million with playoff incentives.

“To be honest with you, it was on and off for a little while, but I think I knew this decision about two weeks ago,” Donald said. “I know the world was saying all types of things and nobody knew what was going on, but I kind of knew for two weeks. I talked to Sean every single week, damn near every day. We stayed in contact. I’d give him all my updates of how I was feeling, how things was going.

“I was doing everything I needed to do to get myself some peace of mind to see if I can do it. Wasn’t no rushing. Just wanted to take my time and make the decision because once you choose to come back, you’re all the way back in.”

What I want to come of this is the second coming of the Fearesome Foursome.

Shortly after the Los Angeles Rams acquired Myles Garrett in a trade with the Cleveland Browns on June 1, a Donald comeback seemed like little more than a long shot.

That fantasy scenario quickly started looking a lot more real, with McVay speaking often on the prospect in a positive light, while still leaving the decision in Donald’s hands. Things picked up steam when Donald had an official tryout on Aug. 5, as noted on the league’s transaction wire. Donald, who had already visited the Rams’ facility a few times before, worked out in a helmet but without full pads. Because he used team equipment, the Rams were required to report the session to the league. Los Angeles reported a second tryout on Aug. 16.

Donald is indeed rejoining the Rams, this time in full pads, adding even more depth to an already stacked roster and giving the defensive line a case for being called a new-age Fearsome Foursome. What’s still unclear is when he’ll actually take the field with the group. McVay told reporters Sunday that L.A. hasn’t yet decided whether Donald will suit up for the season opener against the San Francisco 49ers in Australia. I really hope he gets into that game and then we can move onward without interruption.

Together, Donald and Garrett bring a combined 17 Pro Bowl selections, 13 All-Pro honors, 236.5 sacks and, most impressively, five combined AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year awards to the table. There was a point in our Super Bowl Championship win where Donald and that defense would just devour the Offensive Line and their Quarterback like a triangle of people swarming the entire team pushing them backward all the time. I wondered if a team could even get up to that high level of control ever again and I never really saw it before. It’s hard to explain because the entire offense would just buckle from the entire Defense just manhandling these teams’ Offenses.

Garrett, who won his second career Defensive Player of the Year award last season after setting an NFL single-season sack record with 23, was already seen as the focal point of what was a remarkable Rams offseason. Donald’s un-retirement pushes L.A.’s status as Super Bowl favorites into an entirely new stratosphere.

Here’s where things get interesting. Maybe it’s less a Fearsome Foursome now and more a Fearsome Fivesome, given how defenses across the league are built today, with that extra Edge rusher or glorified Outside Linebacker spot that just didn’t exist back in the day. Hardly any teams still line up with only 4 defensive linemen like they did in the sixties. L.A.’s front is deep: Braden Fiske has 11.5 sacks over two seasons, Byron Young made the 2025 Pro Bowl with 27.5 sacks in three years, Poona Ford holds down the run defense, and Kobie Turner closes out the group with 24 sacks in three seasons. He’s dealing with an injury heading into camp, and it looks like that’ll stick around through it.

One elite pass rusher Donald won’t get to line up alongside is Jared Verse, who went to Cleveland as part of the Garrett deal. Verse once joined a then-retired Donald for one of his legendary workouts and came away calling him a “psychopath” after losing a challenge to him. Nobody’s questioning whether Donald has stayed in shape, but whether he’s in true “football shape,” and how much rust he needs to shake off, will be storylines to watch. So will the sheer anticipation of what he’s still capable of.

Plenty of NFL defensive lines have carried the “Fearsome Foursome” label over the years, but none is more legendary than the Rams’ own, Hall of Famers Deacon Jones and Merlin Olsen, alongside Rosey Grier and Lamar Lundy, with Roger Brown joining later. Many still call that group the greatest defensive line the league has ever seen, but it played in the pre-Super Bowl era and never got the Rams to an NFL Championship Game.

For this new version of a frightening front, the measuring stick will be February.

Super Bowl LXI lands on Feb. 14, 2027, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, the Rams’ own backyard. It’s the same stadium where Donald and the Rams claimed their greatest moment.

Donald sealed that Super Bowl LVI win with an unforgettable 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, sacking quarterback Joe Burrow on a fourth-down incompletion, capping off a second-half defensive masterclass that also included a third-and-1 stop for no gain the play before.

A lot has changed since that championship roster. Odell Beckham went back to the New York Giants, Jalen Ramsey landed with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ernest Jones and Super Bowl LVI MVP Cooper Kupp are now Super Bowl champions themselves with the rival Seattle Seahawks, and veterans like Andrew Whitworth and Rob Havenstein have since retired.

Donald, though, is coming back. He’ll be the lone starter left from that championship defense, rejoining just a handful of teammates who won it all alongside him: Tyler Higbee, Alaric Jackson, Coleman Shelton, and reigning NFL MVP Matthew Stafford.

Donald is not only a future Pro Football Hall of Famer, he induction will now have to wait up to three more years since you need to be retured for five full year. He will now go back ground zero and therefore, he would have been eligible for induction in 2029. Now, he’ll push his candidacy back five years from whenever he plays his final season.

Donald has played 10 NFL seasons, which began with him winning the 2014 AP NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year. Donald has gone to the Pro Bowl every year, has won three DPOY honors and has earned All-Pro recognition eight times, while producing 111 sacks (career-high 20.5 in 2018), 543 tackles, 24 forced fumbles and 176 tackles for loss while earning a spot on the Hall of Fame’s All-2010s Team.

On June 1 when Garrett was acquired, Donald first teased a comeback, posting a workout video on Instagram featuring Bixst’s “Ain’t Done” and captioned “#ready.” His daughter did say that ‘Y’all are crazy’.

L.A. traded for cornerback Trent McDuffie in a trade with the Kansas City Chiefs, signed him to an extension and also signed his longtime K.C. teammate Jaylen Watson.

Overall, anything less than a championship is a failure. But I had that expectation with or without Aaron.

The next steps for me to be a real believer is to now to get some glimpses of his play. If the decision is to whether to play Aaron Donald or Poona Ford, for now and again, to me, that is an easy decision for now at least.