Aaron Donald returns to Rams to join Myles Garrett for the 2026 NFL season

• Aaron Donald returns: The three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year ends his retirement to rejoin the Los Angeles Rams for the 2026 season.

• Historic production: Donald recorded a 90.0-plus PFF defensive grade in every NFL season he played and led all defenders in pressures from 2014-23.

• Elite pairing: Donald joins Myles Garrett to form one of the NFL's most accomplished pass-rushing duos entering the 2026 season.

Buckle up, quarterbacks of the NFC West. Aaron Donald is back, and he'll be lining up alongside Myles Garrett starting Week 1 of the 2026 season.

On Sunday, NFL Network's Ian Rapoport and ESPN's Adam Schefter broke the news that Donald, a three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, has officially decided to end his retirement and return to the Los Angeles Rams.

Donald retired in March 2024 after one of the greatest careers in NFL history. There was no real decline, no lingering stretch of merely okay football. He left while still playing at an elite level, ending a decade-long run that redefined expectations for an interior defender.

Now, Donald's return gives the team something even the Super Bowl-winning teams of the past couldn't claim: two generational defensive superstars playing on the same defensive line. With two-time Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett in place after a post-season trade with the Cleveland Browns, the Rams have now assembled an all-time pass-rushing tandem that will now have to force offenses to account for greatness from every angle.

A decade unlike anything the NFL has seen

Donald entered the league in 2014 carrying one major question. Despite dominating at Pittsburgh, the 13th overall pick was viewed by many as “undersized” at 285 pounds. Evaluators questioned whether his size would hold up against NFL offensive linemen over the course of a long career. His NFL Scouting Report pegged him as an “Average backup or special-teamer.”

Ten years later, those reports read like artifacts from another reality.

Donald earned a 90.2 overall PFF grade as a rookie. And that would turn out to be the lowest overall grade of his first stint in the NFL.

Only eight of a qualifying 549 defensive players earned a grade of 90.0 or higher last season. Donald reached that mark every single year he played in the NFL, including his rookie campaign.

Including the postseason, Donald played more than 9,000 career snaps, a workload that defies any pre-draft doubts about his ability to hold up at the NFL level. He averaged 906 snaps a season. For reference, only 11 interior defenders crossed that mark in 2025.

No defender matched Donald's production

From the moment Donald entered the league until the day he retired, no defender generated more pressure on opposing quarterbacks. Between 2014 and 2023, Donald produced 119 more total pressures than any other player. Including the postseason, that margin grew to 158.

Over that span, Donald led all defenders in sacks (127), quarterback hits (154), hurries (559) and pass-rush wins that did not become pressures because of a quick quarterback release or another factor outside his control (382).

Just as impressive is how efficiently he generated those numbers. He was one of only two defenders to post a pass-rush win rate of at least 20.0% during that span, and his 15.4% pressure rate ranked fifth among all defenders while standing as the best mark by an interior defender.

Donald captured three Defensive Player of the Year awards, earned eight first-team All-Pro selections and won PFF's Dwight Stephenson Award, given annually to the NFL's best player regardless of position, three times.

He also finished No. 1 in the PFF 101 following the 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2020 seasons, while placing second in 2016, 2019 and 2021.

Now comes the terrifying part

The news no quarterback in the NFC West wanted to hear: Donald isn't just returning, but he's returning to play alongside arguably the league's best edge rusher.

After the offseason trade with Cleveland that sent Jared Verse in the other direction, Garrett arrived in Los Angeles having stacked seven consecutive 90.0-plus PFF pass-rushing grades and has led the NFL in virtually every major pass-rushing metric since entering the league in 2017.

His 2025 campaign was another dominant showing, as he generated 84 total pressures, including a league-leading 25 sacks, while adding 14 quarterback hits and 45 hurries.

What's perhaps most remarkable is that Garrett produced those numbers despite facing some of the most aggressive attention in football. He was chipped on 26.07% of his snaps in 2025, the second-highest rate among edge defenders behind only T.J. Watt. And he was double-teamed on a staggering 59.06% of his pass-rushing snaps, the second-highest mark in the NFL behind only Arik Armstead.

No edge defender has been more disruptive since Garrett entered the league. Since 2017, his 95.9 pass-rushing grade ranks first among all edge defenders, ahead of Micah Parsons (94.9) and Aidan Hutchinson (93.2). He also owns the highest pass-rush win rate among defenders with at least 1,000 pass-rushing snaps during that span at 21.8%.

His 135 sacks since 2017 are 13 more than any other player in the NFL, while his 622 total pressures lead all defenders. Danielle Hunter ranks second with 583.

The Rams push their chips in again

The Rams have long operated with an aggressive philosophy. Trading for Matthew Stafford helped deliver a Super Bowl championship. Acquiring Garrett signaled another all-in pursuit of a title.

This move doesn't suggest urgency so much as contempt for the very idea of waiting. It lights the tunnel to SoFi field on fire and dares opposing quarterbacks to walk through it.

For more than a decade, Aaron Donald was football’s ultimate cheat code. And now, for the first time, he does not have to do it alone and will line up next to a player capable of approaching his level of production. For the average football fan, there may be no more exciting prospect ahead of the 2026 season. For everyone around the league tasked with somehow stopping those two forces, it will be an utterly terrifying thought.