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For the first time since after the 2016 season, Aaron Donald is walking into the upcoming season with the Los Angeles Rams off the heels of a 12-loss campaign.
The three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year knows that this time around, he’s not walking into the season a defending Super Bowl champion. He’s walking into a facility where it feels like a reclamation project…making the Rams an underdog this fall. Donald, however, reacted strongly to seeing the Rams getting underestimated ahead of the 2023 season.
“I kinda like it. It’s like starting all over again from scratch,” Donald said this week to the L.A. media. “We ain’t the team that’s talked about. It’s kind of like the little underdogs. You just get to work and just play. You ain’t got to worry about too much other stuff. You just get to play at a high level and just fly around and then wherever the chips may fall.”
Donald added: “Obviously, the media and everything will be talking how they want to talk. As long as we do our job and do what we need to do, we’re going to be in good position and be the type of team we want to be.”
Donald Helped Squash Retirement Rumors
Then there was this tension builder around the Rams’ facility: Will Donald retire?
It marked the second offseason that asked if Donald was going to walk away from the game he’s been so dominant in. This time, Donald was coming off a 2022 season that ended with him going on injured reserve with a high ankle sprain and not finishing out the year.
Donald, though, dispelled any retirement talk.
“Umm, not really,” he said when asked if there was ever any thought of waking away. “Honestly, you never want to want to end your career the way how it was last year, so it never really crossed my mind. So I was just trying to do everything I can to get myself healthy to be here today.”
Donald is fully healthy and ready to go for the ’23 campaign — which features an early tough gauntlet on the Rams’ schedule.
Donald & Rams Face Fierce Early Gauntlet
While the Rams may not get much primetime television love this season, they still managed to get some intriguing matchups for the upcoming slate. And right away, Donald and company are getting a fierce early gauntlet featuring three playoff teams from a year ago.
The Rams start their year off back at the place where their regular season ended with the Seattle Seahawks, a wildcard team from last season and one that now welcomes L.A. region star Zach Charbonnet from UCLA on September 10. Then, the Rams’ home opener brings the longtime NFC West adversary the San Francisco 49ers at SoFi Stadium on September 17.
Then in Week 3, the Rams will have their highly-anticipated Super Bowl 56 rematch with the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday Night Football — which is the only MNF game on the Rams’ 2023 schedule.
To kick off October, the Rams will travel to Indianapolis to take on the Colts, who are projected to have rookie Anthony Richardson behind center after being taken fourth overall in the 2023 NFL Draft. But then October 8 pits a matchup between the last two NFC title holders in the Rams and Philadelphia Eagles inside the “Rams House.”
The complete schedule can be found here.
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