All Ball Sports: Happy Trails to Aaron Donald, welcome Shohei Ohtani
by Paul Teetor
It’s an image that will never be forgotten by hard-core LA Rams fans as long as they live: Aaron Donald half-running, half crawling on his hands and knees towards Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow late in Super Bowl LVI.
The Rams were up by three with less than a minute left. But the Bengals had the ball at mid-field and were making a last-second charge. Rolling right over two Bengals linemen who desperately tried to halt his progress – and were clearly holding him, although it wasn’t called — Donald simply powered his way through them.
When he got to where he was going, Donald reached out and clamped both of his huge mitts on Burrow and started to fling him to the ground. Burrow, off-balance and out of time, threw an errant pass that fell short of its target and landed harmlessly on the SoFi Stadium turf.
And that was the game: Rams 23, Bengals 20.
There would be no last-second Super Bowl heroics by the Bengals, no last-minute collapse by the Rams — both of which were distinct possibilities had Donald not made his unstoppable bull rush.
Donald was the real Most Valuable Player of the Rams historic Super Bowl LVI win in their own stadium, although officially that honor went to wide receiver Cooper Kupp. Two years later, looking back in hindsight, it’s clearer than ever that Donald made all the key plays in a low-scoring, defensive struggle.
Kupp, the Rams All-Pro receiver, had a great game and a great season – he won the triple crown of receivers that year with the most catches for most yards and most touchdowns – but without the fearsome, relentless bull rushes of Donald all game long the Rams don’t win that game. Burrow, after all, is one of the top five quarterbacks in the league and was on a great roll coming into the Super Bowl.
And now Donald is leaving the Rams after 10 spectacular years.
Good news for him – and terrible news for the Rams.
Good news for him because he has taken a fearful pounding in the trenches – where most football games are won or lost – and he’s getting out with his brain, his body and his bank account all in great shape.
But bad news for the Rams because they are losing the anchor of their defense, a 6-foot-1, 285-pound human wrecking ball who forced teams to double team him constantly – thus freeing up other great defenders the Rams have had over the last five years like Leonard Floyd, Jalen Ramsey and John Johnson.
Donald was drafted out of Pitt as the 13th overall pick in the 2014 draft. In 10 seasons with the Rams, he recorded an incredible 111 sacks and was named the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 2017, 2018 and 2020.
He could easily have won several more MVP awards after 2020, but by then teams had figured out that the only realistic way to stop him was to double-team him on every play, like the Bengals did in the Super Bowl — and still they couldn’t contain him when it mattered most.
Donald was the rarest of species: a defensive player who was the face of the franchise from the moment the Rams arrived here eight years ago from St. Louis. By then he was in his third year and already established as a first-team All-Pro defensive tackle.
Along with running back Todd Gurley and newly drafted quarterback Jared Goff, Donald was sold to the fans as a star, someone they could identify with, someone they knew would give everything he had on every play.
Gurley developed knee problems and eventually washed out of the league, while Goff took the Rams to one Super Bowl – where they scored all of 3 points – but after that he regressed and soon was swapped to Detroit for Matthew Stafford, the winning quarterback in Super Bowl LVI.
Now it’s Donald’s turn to say goodbye.
Never one for bragging or making loud predictions, Donald handled his retirement with class, forgoing a news conference for a simple social media post.
“Cheers to what’s next,” Donald said. “Extending a big thank you to the Rams and all of the fans for your support over these last 10 years. Much love.”
In addition to the social media post, Donald also released a letter he sent to the Rams owner Stan Kroenke and the players, coaches and support staff in the Rams organization.
“Throughout my career I have given my everything to football both mentally and physically 365 days a year and was dedicated to becoming the best possible player I could be,” he wrote. “I respected this game like no other and I’m blessed to be able to conclude my NFL career with the same franchise that drafted me. Not many people get drafted to a team, win a world championship with that team and retire with that team. I do not, and will not, take that for granted.”
Next stop: The Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
Dodgers Opening Day – in Korea
It’s time, as Vin Scully loved to say on opening day for more than 60 years, for Dodgers baseball.
But this time it’s time for Dodgers baseball in Seoul, South Korea, where they will play the San Diego Padres on Wednesday and Thursday nights before the home opener against the St. Louis Cardinals a week later.
The unusual – and unprecedented – opening day location for the Dodgers has a lot to do with the team’s status as the top draw in all of baseball now that Shohei Ohtani has joined the traveling circus on a $700 million contract.
The Ohtani insanity has already started on the streets of LA, where there are as many murals of him painted on walls as there are of the late, great Kobe Bryant.
Everywhere you go, he’s the talk of the town.
Look – Ohtani’s baseball pants are see through!
Hey – did you hear that Ohtani got married – and to some normal Japanese girl, Mamiko Tanaka, a national basketball star, not to an LA gold-digger or Kardashian wannabe?
Wow – did you see that Ohtani hit a homer in his first spring training game as a Dodger? That means he could hit 75 or even 80 homers this year because he won’t be using any energy on pitching until next season!
In a city of celebrities, Ohtani has quickly emerged as the biggest celeb in all of LA.
Indeed, it’s hard to believe that he was doing the same thing for six years – pitching and hitting like a modern-day Babe Ruth — in Orange County with the Angels but was seen here in LA more as a novelty than a genuine A-list celebrity.
Can he live up to all the hype now that he’s playing in LaLa land?
That is the question that hangs over the Dodgers season that starts Thursday with a two-game set against the Padres, who made a run at Ohtani this off-season but never had a shot at him once the Dodgers took the bidding into the stratosphere.
Then the Dodgers doubled down on the Japanese pitching connection and signed Yoshinobu Yamamoto to a $325 million contract – even though he had never faced Major league hitters until spring training.
And guess what? He got shelled in his first couple of starts this spring, setting off alarm bells in the front office and on talk radio. Could it be that the 5-foot-10 Yamamoto doesn’t have the size or the speed on his fastball to consistently get MLB hitters out?
We’ll know a lot more about him after the second game against the Padres, since he is the scheduled starter after Tyler Glasnow in the opener.
For now, Manager Dave Roberts doesn’t seem at all worried about his new pitcher.
“Yamamoto’s going to be alright, he’s going to be more than all right,” Roberts said.
For his part, Yamamoto seems unworried. “When I was in Japan I was thinking about the numbers,” he said. “But because I came to a different league, it’s different now. I know what I need to do to get ready for the season.”
And if Yamamoto and Glasnow and the other new pitchers the Dodgers acquired after spending more than a billion dollars in a free agent shopping spree should falter, well, help is on the way.
Call it the rotation in waiting, the staff members working their way back from injuries and due back sometime during the long, 162 game season.
That shadow staff is headed by the all-time great Clayton Kershaw, former All-Star Walker Buehler, and flamethrowers Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin. Throw in Ohtani, and you have a full rotation in waiting as good as any in the big leagues – if they can get healthy and stay healthy.
If ever a team was facing a must-win season, this year’s Dodgers are it. Anything less than a World Series appearance will be considered a monumental failure.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com