NFL Rumors: Aaron Donald inches closer to retirement

The Los Angeles Rams had the most aggressive front office in the NFL. For years, they didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger, make big trades, give up first-round picks, and do whatever it took to win a Super Bowl.

They finally fulfilled their goal last season. Notably, the game ended how it was supposed to, with Aaron Donald wreaking havoc and going for the rival’s QB head, just the way it had been for the past eight years.

Donald is already one of the greatest defensive players of all time and was a first-ballot Hall of Famer, even if he didn’t win a ring. That’s why all the talk about retirement should really worry Sean McVay.

NFL Rumors: Aaron Donald Is ‘At Peace’ With Retirement

“It ain’t about the money, but it’s a business at the end of the day,” Donald said on the ‘I Am Athlete’ podcast. “That’s what you’ve got to see For me, it’s about winning. I don’t want to play football if I can’t win anyway, so I feel like if I got a real opportunity to win another Super Bowl, then it makes sense to play. But again, it’s still a business. We’ve got to handle the business side of things, and if that wasn’t to get handled then, you know, it is what it is type of situation. I’ll be fine regardless.”

“But me talking about retirement, that was happening way before we won a Super Bowl. I’ve been saying that since I got into the league that I was going to play eight years and be done. That’s just what I’ve been saying. It just came out and then everybody think that, ‘Oh, he said if he wins a Super Bowl he’s going to retire.’ Nah, I got teammates, coaches, my family who know about this,” Donald added.

Donald Wants To Win Again, But He Doesn’t Need Football

But it’s not like there’s no hope of him coming back. While he acknowledges that he doesn’t need football or money to be ‘fine’ at this point in his life, he did say that he feels adictted to winning:

“Winning a Super Bowl you get kind of a little addicted to it,” Donald admitted. “I ain’t going to lie. I want to feel that again. That experience is like none other. If I was to play, it’s just to win another Super Bowl, but at the end of the day, it’s still a business and it got to make sense to me and my family.”

“I don’t need to play football to be fine. I’m fine,” Donald said. “I was blessed to play this game, to make the money I made, the accomplishments I made in eight years is, like, I’m complete. If I can win another one, that’s great. But if not, I’m at peace.”

Donald will be the 102th-highest-paid player in the NFL despite being a top-3 playe; that’s simply unacceptable. But then again, given the Rams’ cap situation, they may not be able to offer him that much more.