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What Aaron Donald's Retirement Means for the 49ers

As great of a player as Donald was, the 49ers almost always neutralized him and prevented him from wrecking the game and winning it for the Rams.

Grant Cohn

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This is huge news for the 49ers.

Rams future Hall of Fame defensive tackle Aaron Donald just announced his retirement, which means they won't have to face him anymore. Which is great for them. Although frankly, Donald seemed like he essentially retired two years ago after the Rams won the Super Bowl. He seemed like he was going through the motions the past couple seasons.

And as great of a player as Donald was, the 49ers almost always neutralized him and prevented him from wrecking the game and winning it for the Rams. And what's remarkable is that the 49ers were able to neutralize him with modest players such as Daniel Brunskill and Spencer Burford -- not exactly future Hall of Famers. 

Now the Rams have a highly questionable defense. Last season, it ranked 19th in points allowed, and that was with Donald. Granted, the Rams defense is young and improving, but how many players can you name on it off the top of your head? Any?

Just four years ago in 2020, the Rams had the No. 1 defense in the NFL -- it was the engine of their team. But then they traded Jared Goff for Matthew Stafford, and since then the offense has been the engine of the Rams. They want to put Stafford in the best position to be successful because he's a Super Bowl winning quarterback and he can win games for them if he has help.

Meanwhile, the 49ers still build their team through their defense despite having a Pro Bowl quarterback for the first time since Jeff Garcia.

The Rams signed a Pro Bowl guard in free agency this year and gave him $16 million per season. The 49ers never would do that. But hey, at least they're better than the Rams for now.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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