Sean McVay finally has Aaron Donald back on his defensive line, but his first reaction had little to do with sacks, Super Bowls or what pairing Donald with Myles Garrett could mean for the Rams.
“He means a lot to me,” McVay said Sunday after Donald officially returned to the Rams. “And it’s way bigger than football.”
That sentiment is hardly new.
When Donald retired in March 2024, McVay called him “one of one,” not simply as a player but as a person. He has described their relationship as one of the most special of his coaching career and said Donald “changed my life for the better.”
What McVay has never really done is explain exactly how.
The football answers are easy enough to imagine. Donald was about as close to the ideal McVay player as exists — relentlessly prepared, demanding of himself and others, and essentially another coach on the field.
Donald once even demanded McVay fine him for being 30 seconds late to a meeting after a morning trip to the team restroom ran into overtime.
For a head coach with famously exacting standards, Donald spent a decade helping establish and uphold them without McVay needing to say much at all.
But McVay keeps making clear that isn’t the part he means.
“It’s family with us,” McVay said while discussing Donald earlier this summer, praising “the husband, the father, the son” rather than rattling off his awards or sacks.
That makes their reunion about something different than simply putting an all-time great next to Garrett for another Super Bowl run.
Their connection was just as apparent when Donald originally walked away. After the Rams’ playoff loss to Detroit in January 2024, Donald entered McVay’s office and summed up his decision to retire with two words: “I’m full.”
McVay understood.
McVay didn’t feel the need to sell Donald on another season then, and two years later, he apparently doesn’t need to explain why having him back means so much now.
Donald’s return gives the Rams one of the greatest defensive players ever for another run.
For McVay, though, the bigger reunion appears to be with the person underneath No. 99.
