The Los Angeles Rams have ruled out defensive tackle Aaron Donald for Week 4’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles, but they do believe that Puka Nacua will return. Unfortunately, the super duo of Myles Garrett and Donald has yet to actually play together this season and now they won’t have either of those defensive linemen against the Eagles on Sunday.
Donald was inactive for Week 1 and Garrett has been on IR since Week 2. The Rams do not have a timeline for when Garrett will return from a knee
injury that required surgery, but the latest update put the absence around six weeks.
Donald has not had the type of impact on the field that many were hoping he would have, optimism that was surely shared by the Rams after they paid him at least $20 million to come out of retirement and to play with Garrett. By pressure rate, Donald is among the bottom-10 defensive tackles in the league so far.
The bigger issue at hand for Sunday though is that in spite of those returns, Donald may still bet he Rams’ best defensive lineman. Players like Braden Fiske and Byron Young have been underwhelming, if not bad, while Kobie Turner isn’t having as good of a season as the type of performances he was having over his first three years in the NFL.
How long Donald could miss is unclear, as the possibility of him being out didn’t crop up until the middle of the week. At 35 though, there’s no predicting what kind of a season Donald will actually have.
