Los Angeles Rams: Three biggest concerns heading into 2018
By Jason Reed
1. The future of Aaron Donald
The Los Angeles Rams have the best defensive player in football (at least according to his Defensive Player of the Year award) in Aaron Donald. Despite having a luxury that 31 other NFL teams do not have, the Rams have arguably handled the situation with Donald poorly which could lead to his eventual departure from LA.
The two sides have failed on multiple occasions to reach a contract extension. Whether that is the Rams trying to pinch pennies, Donald being greedy or a mixture of both is unknown. Many teams would be willing to pay Donald a massive contract on the open market, so the Rams really are backed into a corner and have to pay him to keep him on board.
To look at this through an optimistic lens, we can assume that the Rams have all intentions of paying Donald that massive salary and simply are biding their time. More salary cap space will open after Ndamukong Suh’s one-year deal is up along with other expiring contracts.
At that point, the Rams should be able to pay Donald in order to keep him from walking away.
However, this does hurt the future of this special partnership between Donald and Suh. Unless the team opens space elsewhere, or one of them takes a pay cut, it is going to be hard to lock down both Suh and Donald long-term.