Rams smart to plan ahead for Aaron Donald with training camp, preseason

It looks like the Los Angeles Rams are already planning ahead with Aaron Donald in training camp and preseason, which is smart.

While the main focus for the Los Angeles Rams at the moment is on the upcoming 2019 NFL Draft in April, Sean McVay and company gave fans plenty of topics to talk about this week at the league meetings, including the upcoming season with Aaron Donald.

Unlike the last two years, the Rams are in a different position when it comes to Donald this offseason since he signed a six-year extension with the team last August, meaning there will be no concerns over a holdout once training camp arrives.

Rightfully so, Donald had every reason in the world to be unhappy with his contract situation compared to some of the other top defenders across the NFL, and it only took the 2018 season to show the Defensive Player of the Year was worth every penny of that new deal.

Watching Donald set a career high of 20.5 sacks in 2018 despite missing all of training camp and preseasons shows just how special of a player he truly is.

And if football fans thought Donald was amazing this past season, one can only imagine what 2019 will have in store from a motivation perspective after watching the Rams come up shy in Super Bowl 53 against the New England Patriots.

As previously mentioned, Los Angeles has to be thrilled over the fact that Donald won’t be holding out this time around in training camp since the last thing the NFC champions need is another distraction, even if they did make out just fine last season.

Of course, just because Donald will be present for training camp and preseason doesn’t necessarily mean the Rams won’t take a different approach with their star defender, which was discussed by McVay at the league meetings.

Hearing McVay discuss the plan for Los Angeles to take a certain approach with Donald, and most likely have him skip preseason games to avoid any sort of injury should be music to the ears of any Rams fan.

Even though Los Angeles would never allow it, Donald has proven over the last two seasons that he can still be effective without participating in training camp because his work ethic is that good.

But since football is a team sport, McVay knows how important it will be for Donald to be present with the rest of his teammates once training camp does start at the end of July.