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Aaron Donald had a widely publicized holdout last season. Despite having two years left on his contract, Donald was holding out with the hopes of signing a contract extension that never came. Donald missed the entire 2017 preseason before finally reporting the day before opening day. In the meantime, the Los Angeles Rams installed a new regime with a new defensive scheme that Donald had never played in at this level.
The holdout didn’t affect Donald’s play on the field whatsoever. He recorded the highest season grade ever recorded by Pro Football Focus in just 14 games and won the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year award.
Almost a year later, Donald enters the final year of his contract with no extension. He hasn’t reported to a team activity since the season ended. But it feels different this time. For a number of reasons, we shouldn’t be as worried about Aaron Donald as we think we should.
Team Transparency
The Rams have been much more open about their plans to pay Donald than they were last offseason.
In response to whether discussions for extensions with other Rams would affect Donald’s contract, Snead had this to say:
“We’ve got good dialogue with their agents. I’ll keep all of that in-house, but none of it affects Aaron Donald. He’s one of 53 and as I’ve said plenty of times before, we’ve got that budgeted into the budget. We didn’t do all this and forget about him for sure.”
Snead went out of his way to mention that Donald’s already factored into the team’s budget moving forward. Additionally, Snead remarked that “someone who is on the verge of being the highest-paid defensive player in football” when discussing it on Peter King’s MMQB Podcast earlier in the offseason.
While discussing Aaron Donald’s absence from the team’s mandatory mini-camp, Sean McVay stated that the team was “in constant dialogue with Aaron and his group and would like to come to a solution.” McVay didn’t have a timeline for when the extension would be done, but said it was something he wanted the team to be proactive about pursuing.
Donald’s Holdout Dilemma
Aaron Donald will most likely be with the team for the first preseason game with or without a new contract.
In order for Aaron Donald to become an unrestricted free agent, he needs four accrued seasons with the team. He forfeited one last year by missing training camp. Should Donald miss another year of camp, he’ll forfeit yet another accrued season and become a restricted free agent this offseason. This would give the Rams the right of first refusal on any contract offered to Donald by other teams, essentially giving the Rams an even easier hand in keeping Donald. Holding out past August 7th has no benefit for Donald.
The Money’s Not Right
The Rams have made every indication that they plan on giving Aaron Donald a major payday. All signs point to Donald making around $20 million a year on his next contract. The biggest thing preventing the extension is that the Rams currently have $2.2 million in cap space. The team needs to make a lot of space to make room for Donald’s payday.
A potential casualty of Donald’s extension could be Mark Barron. Now that June 1st has passed, cutting Barron will save the Rams $7 million in cap space. (This would cause a lot of other problems for the Rams, most notably losing a starting linebacker and the backlash of cutting a tenured starter so late in the offseason.) Cutting Barron and letting Donald absorb the remaining cap space would put his 2018 contract around $16 million, a few million short of Donald’s expected market value.
The Rams could try to manage this by backloading his contract, but with extensions for Todd Gurley, Jared Goff, and guys like Marcus Peters and Brandin Cooks looming, future cap space is going to be precious. Snead and company have to find away to free up a couple million dollars in cap space before the season starts.
Will Donald Be Paid This Summer?
The best case scenario is that Donald signs a back-loaded extension. The Rams are projected to have $70 million more in cap space than they currently do. Donald will be paid handsomely in 2019, and I expect the Rams to be the team that ponies up.
Should Donald report to camp without an extension, the Rams will pay about $6.9 million dollars, more than double what he made last year. He isn’t passing up that money, and he isn’t going to give up his chance to be an unrestricted free agent. He’ll most likely be with the team before the season begins.
If the Rams fail to reach an agreement with Donald in 2018, expect the Rams to franchise him following the season and move quickly on a new contract. Don’t expect them to let somebody else give him his money. There isn’t a reason to believe anybody in the organization wants that.
Steve Rebeiro is a staff writer and podcast host for Rams Talk. He is an alumni of Marquette University. For more of his opinions, follow him on Twitter here.
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Aaron Donald had a widely publicized holdout last season. Despite having two years left on his contract, Donald was holding out with the hopes of signing a contract extension that never came. Donald missed the entire 2017 preseason before finally reporting the day before opening day. In the meantime, the Los Angeles Rams installed a new regime with a new defensive scheme that Donald had never played in at this level.
The holdout didn’t affect Donald’s play on the field whatsoever. He recorded the highest season grade ever recorded by Pro Football Focus in just 14 games and won the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year award.
Almost a year later, Donald enters the final year of his contract with no extension. He hasn’t reported to a team activity since the season ended. But it feels different this time. For a number of reasons, we shouldn’t be as worried about Aaron Donald as we think we should.
Team Transparency
The Rams have been much more open about their plans to pay Donald than they were last offseason.
In response to whether discussions for extensions with other Rams would affect Donald’s contract, Snead had this to say:
“We’ve got good dialogue with their agents. I’ll keep all of that in-house, but none of it affects Aaron Donald. He’s one of 53 and as I’ve said plenty of times before, we’ve got that budgeted into the budget. We didn’t do all this and forget about him for sure.”
Snead went out of his way to mention that Donald’s already factored into the team’s budget moving forward. Additionally, Snead remarked that “someone who is on the verge of being the highest-paid defensive player in football” when discussing it on Peter King’s MMQB Podcast earlier in the offseason.
While discussing Aaron Donald’s absence from the team’s mandatory mini-camp, Sean McVay stated that the team was “in constant dialogue with Aaron and his group and would like to come to a solution.” McVay didn’t have a timeline for when the extension would be done, but said it was something he wanted the team to be proactive about pursuing.
Donald’s Holdout Dilemma
Aaron Donald will most likely be with the team for the first preseason game with or without a new contract.
In order for Aaron Donald to become an unrestricted free agent, he needs four accrued seasons with the team. He forfeited one last year by missing training camp. Should Donald miss another year of camp, he’ll forfeit yet another accrued season and become a restricted free agent this offseason. This would give the Rams the right of first refusal on any contract offered to Donald by other teams, essentially giving the Rams an even easier hand in keeping Donald. Holding out past August 7th has no benefit for Donald.
The Money’s Not Right
The Rams have made every indication that they plan on giving Aaron Donald a major payday. All signs point to Donald making around $20 million a year on his next contract. The biggest thing preventing the extension is that the Rams currently have $2.2 million in cap space. The team needs to make a lot of space to make room for Donald’s payday.
A potential casualty of Donald’s extension could be Mark Barron. Now that June 1st has passed, cutting Barron will save the Rams $7 million in cap space. (This would cause a lot of other problems for the Rams, most notably losing a starting linebacker and the backlash of cutting a tenured starter so late in the offseason.) Cutting Barron and letting Donald absorb the remaining cap space would put his 2018 contract around $16 million, a few million short of Donald’s expected market value.
The Rams could try to manage this by backloading his contract, but with extensions for Todd Gurley, Jared Goff, and guys like Marcus Peters and Brandin Cooks looming, future cap space is going to be precious. Snead and company have to find away to free up a couple million dollars in cap space before the season starts.
Will Donald Be Paid This Summer?
The best case scenario is that Donald signs a back-loaded extension. The Rams are projected to have $70 million more in cap space than they currently do. Donald will be paid handsomely in 2019, and I expect the Rams to be the team that ponies up.
Should Donald report to camp without an extension, the Rams will pay about $6.9 million dollars, more than double what he made last year. He isn’t passing up that money, and he isn’t going to give up his chance to be an unrestricted free agent. He’ll most likely be with the team before the season begins.
If the Rams fail to reach an agreement with Donald in 2018, expect the Rams to franchise him following the season and move quickly on a new contract. Don’t expect them to let somebody else give him his money. There isn’t a reason to believe anybody in the organization wants that.
Steve Rebeiro is a staff writer and podcast host for Rams Talk. He is an alumni of Marquette University. For more of his opinions, follow him on Twitter here.
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