Aaron Donald was truly a one-of-a-kind athlete.
For a decade, no defensive player in the NFL drew more fear, or more double-teams than Donald, who was named Defensive Player of the Year three times in four years from 2017 to ’20.
How did Donald get so dominant? By taking absolutely no days off.
As quarterback Matthew Stafford recently noted in a story told to Travis and Jason Kelce while appearing as a guest on their podcast New Heights, Donald simply did not know how to not go 100% in the weight room.
Stafford relayed the story of Kyle Frazier, a Rams fan who, after beating Hodgkin's lymphoma, had wished to spend a day with Donald.
“High school kid. Bigger kid. Loved to play football. So A.D. is like, ‘Cool, come workout with me,’” Stafford said. “Immediately, I was like, ‘Whoa what’s about to go down.'”
Sure enough, Donald went as hard as ever hitting the weights.
“Thirty minutes in, A.D. is just ripping curls out,” Stafford said. “Next thing you know, this kid is puking in the trash can in the hallway.”
At that point, the Kelce brothers burst out laughing.
Aaron Donald didn’t hold back in the weight room for ANYONE 😂😭😅 pic.twitter.com/zaBUYzO8Px
— New Heights (@newheightshow) March 12, 2025
Frazier himself loved it.
"Just to be in the same presence as somebody I look up to was amazing," Frazier said to ESPN's Sarah Barshop in January 2023. "I was lost for words. And the workout caught me off guard. Now he put me through something, but every minute of it, I loved it. I cherished it. I'll never forget it."
First off, heck yeah to that Frazier for beating his disease and living his dream. While Donald certainly might have gone a bit harder than necessary given the context of the situation, at the same time, if you’re a young football player who wants to work out with Aaron Donald, you probably want the whole experience.
To hear Stafford tell it, he got just that.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Travis Kelce, Jason Kelce Absolutely Lost It Over Priceless Aaron Donald Story.
