Aaron Donald detailed the conversations he needed to have with his wife before he decided to come out of retirement and re-join the Los Angeles Rams for the 2026 season.
Donald signed a one-year, $20 million deal to bolster a defense that already includes Myles Garrett, who the Rams acquired in a trade with the Cleveland Browns in the offseason.
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While Erica Donald posted on X, “I let him out of the house y’all,” the brooding NFL defensive lineman told reporters he had to make sure his wife and household were good with him going back onto the field.
“I think my wife played a huge part of me making this decision period because if the wife wasn’t happy, it wasn’t going to get done. I got to make sure that the household was good, the kids were okay with it all,” he said. “Then having the hard conversations, figuring things out, what I wanted to do. If I was to do it, how would we do it?
“My wife was on board. She said, ‘If you want to do this, (I’m) with (you) 100%,’ and there were days when I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ She talked to me enough to be like, ‘You want to do this. Don’t make no decisions faster than what you need to make a decision. Take your time.’ She played a huge part of me figuring this out because it really wasn’t an easy decision. It took a lot of hard work, a lot of long conversations with a lot of different people, but I felt good enough to make the decision to come back and do this.”
Donald said he was on the fence about actually coming out of retirement.
He said he spoke to Rams head coach Sean McVay almost every day to give him updates on where he was at about possibly coming back.
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“To be honest with you, it was on and off for a while, but I think we knew this decision about two weeks (ago). I knew the world was saying all types of different things and nobody knew what was going on, but I knew for two weeks,” Donald said. “Then, I talked to Sean every single week, damn near every day. We stayed in contact. I gave him all my updates, how I was feeling, how things were going. I know he got annoyed with [media] asking all the questions in camp every damn day. I felt bad for him at that point, but I was doing everything I needed to do to give myself peace of mind and see if I can do it.
“(There) wasn’t (any) rushing. I just wanted to take my time and make the right decision because once you choose to come back, you’re all the way back in. You can’t be halfway in, you (have to) be all the way in it. I had to get to that point where I felt like I’m 100% committed to playing football again because the last two years have been amazing. Building things that I’ve been building, working on what I’ve been working on, working from home, and jumping back in the fire playing football again. So, I really had to sit back, think about it, not just from the physical aspect (but) from the mental aspect as well. Everything just played out how it played out and we’re here now.”
Donald retired after the 2023 season. He was a Pro Bowler in each of his first 10 years with the Rams and was a First-Team All-Pro selection in all but two seasons. Donald was on the team when the Rams won the Super Bowl in 2021.
He has logged 111 sacks and 543 tackles in 154 career games.
