Earlier this week, LA Rams Defensive Tackle Aaron Donald announced his retirement after an incredible 10-year NFL career. In his decade-long tenure, Aaron has been a 10-time Pro Bowler, eight Pro Bowls, multiple NFC West Championships, and a Super Bowl ring too. The three-time Defensive Player of the Year in his 154 career matches has recorded 111 sacks and 176 tackles making him one of the most dangerous defensive stalwarts of the last decade. Safe to say, NFL QBs can now leave a sigh of relief with Donald’s retirement.
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Despite being 6 feet 1 inches, Donald gave hell to NFL’s offensive players of all sizes thanks to his ability to tactically use his strong body to shake up opponents without fouling. Cam Newton, who is a physical beast himself at 6 feet 5 inches in a recent video on his YouTube channel discussed the trouble Aaron Donald gave him with Stephen A Smith.
Cam Newton praised Aaron Donald for his greatness by narrating an incident between them when Newton’s Carolina Panthers faced off against Aaron’s LA Rams at the Memorial Coliseum stadium. Newton reminisced how well Aaron used his hands and shimmied his body to tackle the bones out of a beast like himself. Cam credited Aaron for being a master at leveraging his opponent’s body against themselves and remembered getting surprised getting tackled by smaller framed Aaron Donald.
“He [Aaron Donald] gets on you so fast like bro it’s almost like he’s a magician. He’s so tactical with his hands, you know like shimmying and getting skinny and using other people’s leverage and swim-moving. I remember he jumped up to hit me too when he was in LA. This was there when their stadium wasn’t born yet. He was playing in the Coliseum and this was the first year that came from St Louis bro. Dude like he jumped up to me bro and hit me my s*it. It’s like bro who the hell hit? Which one of y’all just which one?”
Newton then went on to acknowledge Aaron Donald for the impact player he is. The former Panthers QB shed light on the all-around abilities of the player and called him a player who can “f**k up a whole game” when he gets going. Newton ended the story by calling Donald an “easy Hall of Famer”.
“And he really impacts a full game. The definition of an impact player cuz when he gets going he can F*ck up a whole game and shout out to him for an amazing career. Easy Hall of Famer!”
As Cam mentioned above, Aaron Donald’s most eye-catching ability was to surprise his opponents stealthily. His tackle on Cam Newton in 2016 is a prime example of that.
Aaron Donald’s Wonder Tackle
Eight years ago, the LA Rams lost to the Carolina Panthers 13-10 in a match that had one of the most memorable defensive spots [h/t Yahoo Sports] in NFL history. It all started when Aaron Donald breezed past the Panthers defense and guard Andrew Norwell giving him a clear sight of QB Cam Newton. Seeing the QB’s size and Superman-esque strength, the Rams DT decided to be Superman himself.
Aaron jumped high towards Newton with his arms out and smashed Newton down to the ground. His airborne assault and Superman-esque flying method led many people back then to call it the Superman sack. Though LA Rams went on to lose the match, Aaron Donald gave the Rams fans a moment of a lifetime!
