How one game-ending sack showed the magic of Aaron Donald

This is no secret, but Aaron Donald is pretty much my favorite defensive player to watch these days. Hell, he might be my favorite player to watch of all time.

Last week, I talked about how you have to actually watch Jadeveon Clowney play to understand the impact he has on games. Well, with Donald, even when you do watch him play, you are still likely going to miss some of the things he does. That dude can be a total blur on the field.

It’s almost like watching a magician. I’ll see Donald disappear into a mass of bodies and then — ABRACADABRA! — he just seems to appear right by the quarterback. I’m not sure I’ve ever had to watch a player in slow-motion just to get an understanding of what he did to beat the blockers as often as I have to do with Donald. Everyone thinks their favorite defensive lineman commands a lot of double teams, but Donald is that rare defensive lineman who really does.

Sometimes it’s hard to put into words just how much better Donald is at his job than damn near anybody else is as theirs. I actually have to check myself at times because it’s gotten to the point where when Donald finds himself single-blocked, I almost expect him to win every time.

Now, having played defensive line in the NFL myself, albeit at a lower level than Donald, I obviously know how ridiculous it is to expect a guy to win every one-on-one pass rush. But with Donald, the guy just spoils you with his dominance.

In Week 11, Donald rose to the occasion again under the bright lights of Sunday Night Football and had another game-changing performance in a win over the Bears. A win his Rams, who were 5-4 coming into the game, desperately needed in order to stay in the playoff race.

One reason why Donald has been so successful in Wade Phillips’ base 3-4 scheme is because he gets to move around quite a bit instead of always lining up as the three-technique. As a matter of fact, on Sunday he got a sack or a pressure from damn near every position along the defensive line, save head up on the center.

The second of his two fourth-quarter sacks helped seal the victory for his team, too.

With the Rams up, 17-7, the Bears found themselves with a third- and-11 at their own 24-yard line, just outside of the two-minute warning. Chicago had already inserted backup quarterback Chase Daniel into the lineup after Mitchell Trubisky, who had struggled for most of the game, injured his hip (whether or not that was the real reason he was benched).

Daniel was in shotgun with his running back, Tarik Cohen, offset to his right. That is important because usually that means the center slides in the opposite direction of the running back. That is how good defensive line coaches teach their players to know which side to run their pass-rush games on.

On this particular play, Donald lined up as the right defensive end in a wide five, as the Rams went with a three-man defensive line.

Knowing that the center was likely to be sliding toward Donald, the Rams decided to run a pass-rush game where Morgan Fox ripped to the right A gap, Samson Ebukam rushed in the right B gap, and Donald took two steps upfield then looped all the way around inside to the opposite A gap. While all that was going on, Dante Fowler was bullrushing the piss out of Chicago right tackle Cornelius Lucas.

Everyone on the Rams’ defensive front did their job well initially, and Bears center Cody Whitehair cooperated by sliding Donald’s way. When he made it around to the A gap, however, right guard Rashaad Coward was sitting there waiting for Donald.

Not that it mattered much.

Seeing Coward standing there in the A gap, Donald simply adjusted his rush a little wider to the left and got upfield in the B gap in a hurry. Coward turned and sold out to try to catch up to Donald, and in doing so ended up leaning a little too hard to the outside. Once Donald saw Coward bailing, he hit that skrrrrrt and made a sharp right turn inside, pushing off his outside (left) foot while watching Coward do the electric slide outside and right on past him.

That poor right guard had no chance of slowing down, and as his momentum continued to carry him wide, all Coward could do was reach out helplessly as Donald continued to stalk his quarterback.

By this time, Daniel had also noticed Donald flashing upfield, so he tried to pull the ball down and and run with it. A little hesitation by Daniel in trying to get around Fox and Whitehair was in turn just enough to give Donald the opportunity to catch up to him. Donald ended up reaching out and taking Daniel down from behind before he could actually get past the line of scrimmage.

Donald changed directions about four times to get the sack, and it went in the books as a 3-yard loss. But you should also know that if Daniel had even one second more to scan the field, he had Allen Robinson wide open for a first down and maybe more.

A first down at that point may not have changed the outcome of the game. What we do know is that the the Bears failed to convert a fourth-and-14 on the very next play and the ended up turning the ball over on downs.

Game over.

With the NFC West being as strong as it is this year, the Rams may well see themselves on the outside looking come playoff time. To even be in the conversation, they will probably have to win almost all of the remaining games on their schedule. The Bears did manage to stay close for most of the game, but with the help of Donald’s heroics, the Rams were able to close out the win and keep those postseason hopes alive.

After a slow start to the season, Donald has picked his game up in recent weeks. He played outstanding ball against the Steelers the week before, and his two sacks against the Bears pushed him to seven sacks in the last five games.

He is now up to eight sacks on the season and that puts him in elite company. Donald joins Reggie White, Derrick Thomas, and DeMarcus Ware as the only four NFL players to record at least eight sacks in each of their first six seasons in the league. Oh, and to go along with those two sacks, he also notched four other pressures, two additional hits on the quarterback, four tackles, and one pass knocked down at the line of scrimmage.

Light work.

At the rate he is going now, the two-time defending Defensive Player of the Year may just well pull himself right back into the race by the end of this season. After all we have seen of him so far, I don’t think there is any question that, provided he stays healthy, Donald will eventually end up as the most accomplished pass rusher in NFL history.

I said what I said. Because I’m not even sure we have seen the best of him yet.