No quarterback was safe when Aaron Donald was lined up on the Rams’ defensive line. In fact, no running back was, either. But Donald made a living on sacking the quarterback, which is primarily why he’s one of the best defensive players of all time – if not the best.
Across his 10 seasons, Donald recorded 111 sacks in the regular season. He had six more in the playoffs, including 3.5 during the Rams’ Super Bowl run in 2021.
The visual breakdown of Donald’s 111 career sacks is amazing when you analyze it by quarterback, which is exactly what the Rams did after Donald announced his retirement Friday. They shared a graphic of the 53 quarterbacks Donald sacked in his career and the number of times he brought them to the ground.
He sacked Russell Wilson far more than anyone else, taking him down 15 times. The next-closest was Kyler Murray (6.5 sacks), followed by his teammate of three years, Matthew Stafford (6 sacks).
Check out the graphic below and click it to see the full thing.
Offensive lines had 99 problems… and they were all @AaronDonald97. pic.twitter.com/z9eo41O0eS
— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) March 15, 2024
There are a lot of great names in that photo, including Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Drew Brees, Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Aaron Rodgers and Philip Rivers. It’s impressive that he got to Cam Newton and Josh Allen three times each because those two players are nearly impossible to sack.
You might notice there isn’t a Jets or Eagles quarterback in the photo. That’s because those are the only two teams he didn’t record a sack against. There are a bunch of sacks against the 49ers, Cardinals and Seahawks, recording 16 against Arizona, 15.5 against Seattle and 12.5 against the 49ers in his career.
