With Aaron Donald Mystique Looming, Myles Garrett Opens Up On Rams' Reality 

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif — Myles Garrett and Aaron Donald aren't constantly communicating. But the reigning Defensive Player of the Year who currently plays for the Los Angeles Rams and the three-time Defensive Player of the Year who's considering returning to the Rams are in touch.

"We talk every now and then," Garrett told Yahoo Sports from the Rams' facility on Wednesday. "I would say we talk every three or four days.

"I check on him. He checks on me."

Two weeks into training camp, the checks continue from afar.

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That the Rams are even fathoming a reality with Donald is wild. Consider that much of Vegas deemed the Rams the Super Bowl favorites this season before they traded three draft picks and outside linebacker Jared Verse to acquire Garrett, whose accolades include two Defensive Player of the Year honors, five first-team All-Pro honors and the NFL's single-season sack record.

Perhaps Donald reads a sentence like that and thinks: Well, that's an answer to the double and triple teams.

Or perhaps Donald, who retired two years ago after 10 seasons anchoring the Rams, has wanted to do this anyway.

Garrett has a hunch.

"The fact that my addition to the Rams made him want to get off the couch makes me think that he was always looking for a reason to get up — he just needed that spark," Garrett said. "And he just believed [the Rams] were probably like one piece away from having exactly what we need.

"So I don't think the fire ever died. You just have to make sure he can keep it stoked for 20 games or however many he ends up playing. … He's still at that age where he could still turn it on for 30, 40, 59 plays and be the guy we knew."

The Rams' holding pattern with Donald continued as they cycled through their jog through Wednesday ahead of a Saturday preseason game at Kansas City.

But a leadership group that trends far toward the unbothered end of the NFL spectrum continues to take this holding pattern in stride publicly.

Few believe Donald needs training camp practices to dominate. And the Rams believe that if Donald decides to come back, he'll be ready.

"When he commits to something, he's going to go through all the stress and drudgery necessary to be great," general manager Les Snead told Yahoo Sports. "He wants to be able to figure out, OK, can he put his body and maybe probably even psych[e] through what he knows he's going to ask his body and psych[e] to go through?

"So it's not surprising he's taking this amount of time."

And it's not surprising the Rams are confident either way.

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Rams' early lesson on Garrett: 'Don't follow him. He has his own protocol.'

Rams players and coaches think back to an early practice of training camp, perhaps the first practice though by now they blend together.

Los Angeles' offense teed up a perimeter screen. Garrett noticed the offensive tackle opposite him wasn't set heavy enough to suggest a long pass play, so he jumped in hopes of snagging the ball. The coaching point: Put your hand up, but don't jump because now you're out of position to help on the play. The lifespan of that coaching point: not very many days.

"A few days later, they do a screen again to his side and legit just jumps," right guard Kevin Dotson told Yahoo Sports. "Got the interception and it's like you see that, you almost can't tell him [not to]. What do you tell him? I mean, it works for you. Everybody else you can't jump …

"Don't follow him. He has his own protocol."

An impish grin creeps across Garrett's face as he remembers the play. He didn't boast to his coaches afterward or insist that hey, actually he can jump when he sees a lane because of the momentum-changing plays he'll force. His play spoke for itself, just as the hardware Garrett brings to his Wednesday interview does. His 2025 AP Defensive Player of the Year trophy is hefty. Heftier, still, is the briefcase celebrating his latest membership renewal to the Madden 99 Club.

The body of work that earned these accolades convinced the Rams to trade their 2027 first-round pick, 2028 second, 2029 third and Verse to acquire Garrett in the twilight of Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford's career.

Garrett is a player who sets outlandish goals, like the 25-sacks and 40 tackles-for-loss benchmarks he wrote on a whiteboard near his desk last season. He's a player who achieves outlandish goals, like the league-record 23 sacks and second-in-league-history 33 tackles for loss he amassed last season.

In the nine years since Cleveland selected Garrett first overall in the NFL Draft, he's stacked up 125.5 sacks, 149 tackles for loss, 239 quarterback hits, 412 tackles, 18 pass deflections, 23 forced fumbles and six fumble recoveries. 

Snead heeded the recent-year whispers that Garrett could become available. This March, Garrett's availability began shifting more toward reality in the march toward a June 1 deal that shocked the league.

Garrett's "blessed with the ability, capability and skill," Snead said. "The reason I say 'skill' is you got to continue evolving to win the one-on-one iso[lation] moments probably as smoothly and as easy as he does. But then the kind of wild thing is sometimes when you do things to take him away, he's evolved and skilled and applied things to go, 'OK, I can maybe affect a game with a double and a third chip.'"

The Rams' offense can't rest in training camp.

"You can tell he's a craftsman based on his ability to respond and adapt to the looks that we've presented," offensive coordinator Nate Scheelhaase told Yahoo Sports. "He can impact practice in a hurry."

If Donald joins Rams, Garret thinks 'we could win it all'

The paradox of the Rams' roster construction is how likely and unlikely it positions them to capture this season's championship.

Depending on the oddsmaking formula one uses, the chance a Rams Super Bowl bet cashes in is between 12.5% and 15.4%. That's the best chance of any of the 32 NFL teams and yet, it also means there's roughly an 85 and 88% chance that the Rams do not win the Super Bowl in February.

Still, they paid big this offseason for Garrett as well as cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson to complement a star-studded roster that begins but does not end with Stafford, Puka Nacua, Davante Adams and more. Are the investments worth it?

"Las Vegas is not paying anyone any money til February 14, so 'Super Bowl favorites' just helps Vegas do their business," Snead said. "You never discuss, 'Let's do this to win the Super Bowl.' [It's instead,] 'Hey, let's get in this arena and let's go for it.

"Let's embrace the journey."

The Rams are embracing the journey as they watch Garrett cycle through his speed and his bend, his power and his explosiveness, teammates and coaches wondering whether there's any pass-rushing superpower Garrett doesn't possess.

Garrett is embracing the journey as he settles into a more stable and recent success-laden franchises than the Browns provided. The Rams benefit from a rare continuity at head coach and general manager that belies a chicken-and-egg problem in the NFL in which continuity sometimes brings success, but without success, team ownership groups are hesitant to allow continuity.

"When I was with Cleveland, we were searching for a foundation, searching to create a culture each year," Garrett said. "People come in and out, young guys come in, older guys getting phased out. You're trying to hold onto a culture or create a culture. You're fighting that battle each year.

"This [Rams culture] is something that's being set by a coach who's been here for a while. It's been a high level since he's been in the league and it's been upheld by some great players. And so it's just continued to stack upon itself."

And perhaps, before the season begins, the Rams will stack yet another culture and roster piece? They downplay the need to know whether Donald will join them, insistent that yes a contract is necessary and yes a roster spot would need to be made, but how often does that happen in the cyclical nature of the NFL?

"It's not something you're going to lose sleep over," Snead said. "It's relevant, but not necessarily, 'OK, let's bring in the brigade to try to solve this.'"

If Donald wants to play, and wants to do all the work that playing entails, Vegas would be wise to bet that the Rams find a way.

The details matter less. This is Aaron Donald, the eight-time All-Pro player, the 111-sack holder, with a chance to line up beside an edge rusher who's chasing Donald's rare level of greatness, albeit from the edge rather than Donald's interior post?

Consider Garrett excited. But don't consider his excitement reliant on Donald's return.

"Is the prospect of him coming back interesting? Absolutely …" Garrett said. "I think it would be something that we've possibly never seen before and it's exciting to think about. But I just don't want it to take away from anything that the guys here are doing. There are young guys in that position room who are looking for an opportunity to make a name for themself. And I don't want any of their hard work to take a backseat. And I know if we can find a way to get the most out of all of us, him and them, so we can make the most out of this that we have, I think that's the end goal.

"I think we could win it all if we can figure it all out."