Aaron Donald Contract: Expensive, Painful and Necessary for Los Angeles Rams

After giving $16.7 million to cornerback Trumaine Johnson, the time for the Los Angeles Rams to exercise financial restraint is not with the Aaron Donald contract.

Turf Show Times reported the Carolina Panthers’ re-signing of defensive tackle Kawaan Short to a five-year, $80 million deal, lamenting the exorbitant market value that Donald will have after 2018 when his current contract expires.

“The Rams are going to need to come up with a compelling reason for Donald to remain in LA, a reason they don’t have right now,” Turf Show Times reported.

How about the fact that Donald is a once-in-a-generation player that will allow other Rams players to have success because of the amount of attention Donald will command?

Turf Show Times note that Short amassed five sacks in his first two seasons with the Panthers. Donald had 20 sacks with the Rams. That’s also more than Ndamukong Suh and Marcell Dareus when they sought bigger contracts in 2015.

Dareus, who re-upped with the Bills just before the 2015 season for six years and $96.6 million, according to Sportrac, had 11 sacks his first two seasons. Suh, who signed a six-year deal worth $114.375 million with the Dolphins before the 2015 season (Sportrac), collected 20 sacks his first season.

The Donald contract likely will exceed those of both Dareus and Suh.

The Rams last week showered some good relationship karma with the current Donald contract, exercising the fifth-year option on the defensive tackle’s deal for almost $7 million.

Unless Los Angeles is involved in a franchise-changing trade and gets multiple No. 1 draft choices for Donald, it has to do all it must to retain Donald and continue to build the defense around him. The Rams defense seems to be set on the line for the next few seasons so that they can put the right complementary pieces around their former first-round draft pick out of Pittsburgh.

A Donald contract going into six figures also makes when newly hired Wade Phillips can take advantage of his talents to wreak havoc on defenders.