Aaron Donald flirted with retirement after the Rams won the Super Bowl two years ago. A few months later, he signed a new three-year contract worth a total of $95 million. Many believe he brought up the possibility of retirement simply to get a new contract from the Rams, which there may be some truth to.
This offseason, Donald officially announced his retirement after 10 seasons, hanging up his cleats after a decorated and Hall of Fame career. Rams legend Marshall Faulk isn’t so sure Donald will stay retired, though.
He came up with a theory that Donald only retired because “he wants more money.” It’s hard to believe that to be true considering if Donald returned for another season in 2024, he’d have earned an extra $30 million on top of the $65 million he got for the last two seasons.
Faulk shared his thoughts recently on the Bleav In Rams podcast, explaining why he believes Donald could be back when he sees camps opening this summer and he’s not in attendance.
“I’m in disbelief, and I’m in such disbelief that I’ve concocted a conspiracy theory that he’s done with the guaranteed money, he saw the money that Chris Jones got – and I don’t know if Chris Jones got more money than he got. This is in my head and I’m like, he wants more money. He wants to be the highest-paid,” Faulk said. “It looks good for Hollywood right now. I see he’s spending a lot of time with The Rock. He might end up on the WWE, might be cookin’ something with The Rock. Who knows? All of that might be in his plans. That’s just in my head. That’s just in my head, I’m not going to lie. I’m like, training camp’s going to roll around and 99 – and I’m telling you, every professional football player, it’s weird when you’re done playing and everybody else is going to camp and you’re not going. You’re like, ‘What do I do? What do I do here? Everybody is in camp.’ Your routine is broken and it takes a while to get accustom to the new routine. I’m hopeful that Aaron Donald comes back, that he plays. I think there’s more than just a couple of years there. But what I don’t know is what the body is feeling like. You don’t know. You don’t know how much he’s investing into being the person that he is and he might be slipping a little bit and he don’t want to play without being his best. There’s a lot of things in play but I’m hopeful that my conspiracy theory that he’ll be coming back is the truth.”
Faulk knows about missing training camp after retiring from football because he’s gone through it himself. However, the same may not apply for Donald. The three-time Defensive Player of the Year said this week that he’s “burned out” and he can’t imagine going through another training camp and 17-game season.
It’s always possible that he’ll come out of retirement, either this year or next. He wouldn’t be the first to do so. But it sure seems like he’s serious about stepping away from football fully healthy and with a trophy case full of hardware.