Aaron Donald couldn’t possibly be as good as everyone says he is. He’s better

He needs four sacks to break the record, and with one game left he just might get it.

So, I would imagine that if you aren’t a Los Angeles Rams fan, that you probably haven’t watched a ton of Rams games this year. And even if you did happen to see them play, you were probably paying a lot more attention to their high flying offense than their defense. And even if, by some odd chance, you were interested in watching their defense, it still isn’t very likely that the average football fan would be focused on the defensive line.

But, let me tell you something, friend, if you haven’t been watching Aaron Donald all this season, you have definitely been missing out!

I know with Donald being the reigning Defensive Player of the Year also having an outstanding season so far that you probably have at least heard about him (especially if this isn’t your first time reading my column). You likely have even heard that he’s been double teamed on a ridiculously high percentage of plays this season, as well.

Even still, you might be thinking he couldn’t possibly be as good as people are making him out to.

You’re right. He’s even better.

The only reason he hasn’t already broken every sack record known to man is because teams have been sending those double and triple teams at him all year. What Donald faced from the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, however, was unprecedented in my time breaking down film for SB Nation.

The Cardinals dropped back to pass 40 times on Sunday, including penalty plays, and they at least intended to block Donald with more than one player on all but four of those plays.

Four. Out of forty.

Mind you, two of those four plays where they singled him up were screen passes. One of the remaining two was a bootleg where he beat the guy blocking him, left tackle Korey Cunningham. The fourth play Donald beat left guard, rookie Colby Gossett (get used to hearing that name in this column), clean for a pressure.

On the 36 other passing plays there were at least two Cardinals assigned to block him.

Did I mention that Donald still managed to notched three sacks, two pressures, and a quarterback hit against them?

Because, yeah ...

The Cardinals’ game plan was simple, and probably way more effective than any alternative they could have come up with, believe it or not. Yes, what i’m saying is that giving up three sacks was probably the best outcome they could have hoped for. From what I could tell, when Donald was lined up on the right guard, Oday Aboushi, as the left three-technique, Arizona had a running running back to help out Aboushi and double team Donald.

A true double team, too, not just a chip.

When Donald was lined up on Gossett as the right three-technique, however, they had the center, Mason Cole, slide over to double him. It was apparent that they were bound and determined to make sure that if anybody beat them, it wasn’t going to be Aaron Donald.

And he still busted their heads wide open.

But I don’t want this to be just about double team percentages and sack numbers, so let me go ahead and breakdown each of his three sacks for you to illustrate just how dominant of a performance this was from Donald.

The first sack came with just over nine minutes left in the first quarter. The Cardinals had moved the ball all the way down to the Rams’ 30-yard line, but after a false start they were facing a first-and-15 from their 25.

Donald was lined up as the right three-technique across from Gossett, which meant Cole was going to be sliding to Donald to double team him. Because of how many bodies teams have been throwing at him on a consistent basis this season, Donald has developed different ways to overcome the extra attention and still make plays. This play was one iteration of that. I would call this his ”beat the first guy so fast, the second guy can’t get there to help” method.

Now, a great get off is one of the most potent weapons a pass rusher can haven in his arsenal. Combine a great get off with a great cross-chop-to-an-arm-over move, as Donald did to Gossett, and the opposing quarterback might as well go ahead and cancel Christmas.

Donald was up the field so fast off the snap that all Gossett could do was reach out to try to grab him. Gossett sticking his outside arm like that allowed Donald to easily chop his hand down. In fact, Donald beat Gossett so quickly and cleanly that Cole, who took off on a dead sprint behind Gossett to try to intercept Donald after he saw Gossett getting beat, could barely even get his hands on Donald before he was able to take down Arizona’s rookie first-round pick, Josh Rosen, right after Rosen finished his drop back.

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Everything about Donald’s move was defensive line porn. The get off, the precision of his hands, turning his hips toward the quarterback to get skinny as he slipped by Gossett with an arm over. the immediate burst off the move, the little detail of a dip and rip as he encountered Cole to make sure he couldn’t impede Donald’s progress, and the extra little explosion on the last couple of steps to give himself a chance to swipe at the ball, while also being able to get Rosen on the ground.

If you didn’t know, being able to do that kinda shit so consistently and effortlessly is absolutely not normal, man.

Especially with the added attention.

And yet Donald does this kinda stuff several times almost every week!

To wit, on his second sack of the day, Donald diversified and employed what I would term his “use your double team against you” method of beating a double team this time, and it was glorious! He did get an assist from his line mate Ndamukong Suh for this one, however.

It happened with a little over 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter and the Rams already up a little to a lot. Arizona was threatening to score after making it to the Rams’ 44-yard line. Unfortunately for them, after two incompletions, Arizona was staring at a third-and-10, which is not what you want when you are facing a menace like Donald ... well, there really aren’t any on field menaces quite like Aaron Donald these days.

I’m increasingly skeptical that there ever has been.

Anyway, Donald was lined up across from Gossett again as the right three-technuque, and again, Cole came a calling to try to help Gossett. The problem with having a plan geared toward neutralizing Donald with double teams, above and beyond the fact that it probably won’t work, is that you tend to become a little too predictable. Donald had evidently peeped that when he was on Gossett, Cole was going to slide his way, so he and Suh decided to run a TOM pass rush game and exploit that tendency.

With Cole sliding to Donald, that left Suh one-on-one with the right guard, Aboushi. Running the TOM game, Suh took two steps upfield initially, then grabbed Aboushi by his forearms and tossed him outside, while he stepped down inside.

On the other side of the line, like clockwork, Gossett was setting wide with Cole sliding his way to help. But this time something was a little different. This time, though Donald took four steps after the snap of the football, he wasn’t actually getting up the field. He took two real steps then chopped his feet on the other two just to get Gossett bailing as usual and to get Cole to go ahead and slide on over.

That’s what you call a “set up,” ladies and gentlemen.

With Cole focused so intently on Donald, he never saw Suh coming. Suh got inside of Aboushi and was able to get a good chuck on Cole before Aboushi was able to recover. Aboushi ended up pushing Suh inside just enough to allow Rosen to step to his right and avoid him.

There was just one problem.

Donald never got close enough to Gossett for Gossett to actually get his hands on him, so with Suh having eliminated Cole, and Aboushi locked onto Suh, there was nobody left to block Donald when he looped inside on Gossett, flying into the backfield untouched to take down Rosen as he stepped out of the way of the proverbial frying pan and right into the path of the almost literal fryer.

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I guess you could say that there technically wasn’t a double team from on that play since nobody actually touched Donald before he got to Rosen. It was not from a lack of trying, however!

Now, those first two sacks were pretty incredible, no? Well Donald’s third sack might have been the most impressive play of the day from him. To get that last sack he employed my favorite Donald method of all time for beating double teams, something I like to call his “Fuck Your Double Team!” method.

With a little less than nine minutes left in the game, and the Rams up 31-9 it was obvious that the Cardinals were going to have to throw the ball to try to get back into it. Having to pass with Donald lined up across from you is not a situation you want to be in, believe me.

Donald was once again lined up as the three-technique across from Gossett, and what does that mean class?

Yes, it meant Cole was going to slide toward Donald again.

Instead of trying to avoid the double team this time, Donald decided to split it.

Donald got off the ball like he was shot out of a cannon, which he knew would make Gossett bail out of his stance. However, instead of trying to beat Gossett around the edge again, Donald went right at him as if he was going to bull rush Gossett into oblivion. In a flash Donald again changed course and transitioned to an inside move just as he was getting close to Gossett, turning his hips toward Gossett and pinning Gossett’s inside hand inside to slide by him.

As it happens, Gossett jumped out so wide to try to account for Donald’s speed, that Cole wasn’t able to slide over quickly enough to close the gap between the two of them. Donald was a blur going from inside move, to power rush, to inside of Gossett, and it was all Cole could do to get his hands on Donald at that point. Unfortunately for him, in order to get over to block Donald, Cole had to turn his shoulders pretty much perpendicular to the line of scrimmage. That meant he couldn’t provide any resistance as Donald powered through his outside shoulder.

Rosen saw Donald coming and tried to avoid taking a big hit. He turtled up and started to fall to the ground just to avoid Donald, but Donald is just so damn coordinated that there was no avoiding him on that play. Donald managed to reach around Cole and slap Rosen on his right shoulder to help send him all the way to the ground.

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What’s wild is that Donald did all of this so quickly that when Rosen got up and took off running after hitting the ground, the refs initially didn’t think Donald had touched him and allowed the play to continue. The Rams had to throw a friggin’ challenge flag in order for this man to get credit for his third sack of the game.

I can promise you, as someone who watches him play on a weekly basis, that slo-mo replay is the only way to watch Donald that does his play justice. You simply cannot see all the awesome stuff he does on most plays watching it at normal game speed. Here were referees trained to see everything, and even they missed him getting a pretty nice swipe on Rosen’s shoulder as Donald passed by to get that sack.

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With those three sacks against Arizona, Donald now has 19.5 on the season, which is not only a Rams team record, but also puts him just three away from tying the NFL single season record* of 22.5 set by Michael Strahan in 2001. And before you say that’s not that close, keep in mind that Sunday marked Donald’s seventh game this season with two or more sacks and his second of the season with three or more. Also, its worth noting that while Arizona is tied for 24th in the NFL in sacks given up with 46, the 49ers, whom Donald and his Rams face in the final game of the regular season, are just above them tied at 23rd having given up 45 of their own.

I’m just saying.

Three sacks, two pressures a quarterback hit, a tackle for a loss and three more tackles is one hell of a stat line. Aaron Donald put on a spectacular show on Sunday against the Cardinals, in spite of them obviously game planning specifically to try to stop him from doing just that. I don’t know how you can watch his film this year and not see Donald as not only the best defensive player in the league, but also, perhaps, the best player in the league period. While there is still time to hash that out, with his work against the Cardinals Donald easily won my Hoss Of The Week honors for this past week.

Even if you aren’t a Rams fan, I would encourage you to try to check him out next week against the 49ers. I have a feeling he is going to go all out to get try to at least tie the single season sack record, and I, for one, wouldn’t bet against him.