Aaron Donald likely won’t retire with Steelers, in case you ever thought he might
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Los Angeles Rams star defensive lineman Aaron Donald apparently has no intention of returning to his hometown of Pittsburgh and retiring as a Steeler.
For anyone who was truly wondering if that was a possibility.
“Football Morning in America’s” Peter King broached that topic in his weekly post on Monday by way of ruling out the chances of it happening.
Not that it was a percolating conversation around these parts recently — or even mentioned at all.
But King wrote in his “10 Things I Think I Think” section, “I think, for the record, Aaron Donald is not likely to play the twilight of his career for the Steelers. I hear it’s not a burning desire of his.”
I barely heard it being floated as a possibility.
In July, Jason McIntyre of Fox Sports and Mike Lombardi on “The Pat McAfee Show” tossed around the idea of Los Angeles trading Donald but didn’t specifically mention Pittsburgh.
Mike Florio wrote something about the Pittsburgh angle 14 months ago at ProFootballTalk. But it was mainly part of a greater discussion about the outs associated with Donald’s contract.
“The structure (of the new contract) allows Donald to play for L.A. through 2023 at a total payout of $65 million. At that point, he can retire with no financial consequences of any kind. And if he retires following the 2023 season, the next move could be to try to unretire with a new team,” Florio said. “At that point, Donald could try to leverage a trade to a location closer to his hometown of Pittsburgh. … If the Rams will get no further services from him either way, they could secure some amount of value in exchange for swapping the final season of his deal to another franchise.”
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But, as Florio pointed out, if Donald wanted to play that game, he could just as easily leverage a way to another city that was close enough to Pittsburgh if the Penn Hills native really had no desire to return home — like any other AFC North team, for instance.
The prospsect was kicked around on Arthur Moats’ podcast last month. But the ex-Steeler didn’t really push the narrative that the Pitt product would have much of an interest in returning to the Steel City. In fact, he made it sound unlikely.
“How does this fit? How does that work? Who’s getting got? Are the Rams gonna say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna do a fire sale and take on all of A.D.’s contract?’ Nah, I don’t know, man,” Moats said at the time.
The salary cap machinations and draft compensation to make Donald a Steeler would be massive and, frankly, not worth the space here for you to read or the time for me to figure out how to verbalize.
But, apparently, it’s a moot point now — as if it wasn’t previously.
So, sadly, folks in Penn Hills are just going to have to stick with their No. 97 jerseys in Pitt Blue and Gold or their 99s in Rams Blue and Gold.
No. 97 and No. 99 in Black and Gold are going to have to stay with Cameron Heyward and Larry Ogunjobi, respectively. That’s not so bad.
In similar news, the Penguins have no plans to trade for Logan Cooley, and the Pirates will not be reacquiring Gerrit Cole.