Aaron Donald Has Official Workout With Rams as Unretirement Speculation Grows
Aaron Donald put on Rams gear and stepped onto the practice field this week — and this time, it wasn’t just another offseason visit. The 35-year-old had an official workout with the Los Angeles Rams on Wednesday, according to Yahoo Sports, citing ESPN’s Adam Schefter. It’s the clearest sign yet that the future Hall of Famer is seriously weighing a return to football two years after walking away.
Donald has shown up at the Rams facility plenty of times since retiring. He’s stayed close with the team, worked out alongside current players and even put young defensive lineman Jared Verse through an old-fashioned gym session at his house this offseason, according to CBS Sports. But Wednesday’s session was different. Because Donald wore a helmet and used Rams team equipment on Rams property, the club had to report it to the NFL — which is why his name landed on the league transaction wire that afternoon, per Yahoo Sports.
Sean McVay had some fun with the moment. “Best tryout that we’ve ever had,” the Rams head coach joked while speaking with the NFL’s Gregg Rosenthal.
Why This Is Happening Now
Donald retired in March 2024 after 10 seasons in Los Angeles, three Defensive Player of the Year awards and a Super Bowl ring. He said at the time he’d given the game “everything” mentally and physically and was ready to move on. That should have been the end of it.
Then, on June 1, the Rams landed Myles Garrett in a trade with the Cleveland Browns, sending Verse and three future draft picks to Cleveland for the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, per the Browns’ own announcement. Garrett set the NFL’s single-season sack record with 23 sacks in 2025 and is widely regarded as the best defensive player in football. The move signaled Los Angeles was building toward a real Super Bowl push in 2026, and it immediately reignited chatter about Donald joining him.
Garrett himself has stoked it. “Someone who, as great as he is, I think he can definitely come back and do it,” Garrett said last month, according to Yahoo Sports. “It’s just whether he wants to do that for however many games he chooses to play.”
The speculation only built from there. TMZ Sports captured Donald doing ladder drills, medicine ball throws and agility work at the Rams facility back on July 10, and ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported at the time that Donald hadn’t made a “firm decision,” though a return remained possible, according to Bleacher Report.
What McVay and the Rams Are Saying
McVay has been careful not to get ahead of Donald. Speaking as players reported to training camp, the coach said he “genuinely” doesn’t know which way Donald will go. “He is going through his process, and he is putting himself in a position to make a decision, and he’s earned the right to be able to do that,” McVay said, according to the team’s official site. “Anything that he does, he does all in, and so he’s going through a very strict, regimented process that was similar to what he did when he played.”
There’s a financial wrinkle, too. Because Donald retired before his contract expired, the Rams would owe him roughly $30 million in dead money if he comes back, a figure confirmed by Over The Cap after an ESPN report from Schefter, according to Yahoo Sports. That’s a cash issue rather than a salary-cap one — Los Angeles has already absorbed the cap hit — and the team currently has roughly $18-19 million in open cap space for 2026.
| Category | Detail |
|---|---|
| Donald’s age | 35 |
| Seasons away from NFL | 2 (retired March 2024) |
| Career sacks (Rams, 2014-23) | 111 |
| Career tackles for loss | 176 |
| Defensive Player of the Year awards | 3 |
| Dead money owed if he returns | ~$30 million (per Yahoo Sports/Over The Cap) |
What Comes Next
Nobody outside the building knows for sure how this ends. McVay has previously suggested August 8 — the day after camp opens — as the earliest realistic date for any announcement, according to Rams-focused outlet Ramblin’ Fan. Wednesday’s workout doesn’t guarantee anything. It does mean the Rams have now put Donald through a real, reportable evaluation rather than just letting him mess around in the gym.
If Donald does unretire, the Rams would be pairing him with Garrett on a defensive front that already includes Kobie Turner, Byron Young and Braden Fiske — the kind of depth that could let defensive coordinator Chris Shula get creative with pressure packages. Los Angeles went 12-5 last season and reached the NFC Championship Game, its deepest playoff run since the 2021 Super Bowl title. The Rams open the 2026 season against the San Francisco 49ers in Australia on September 10.
