The Rams are progressing on what would be a major development for their long-term plans, with GM Les Snead confirming the team’s contract talks with Aaron Donald are advancing. They’re now in the “serious” phase and have gotten to the point the All-Pro defensive tackle is not presently at OTAs, Alden Gonzalez of ESPN.com reports.
Donald may be trying to avoid injury while these talks are ongoing, Steve Wyche of NFL.com tweets. Snead said the parties have been discussing an extension for a while and hopes the sides can reach a deal soon, per Wyche. The GM said at the Combine that Donald “deserves a raise.”
Gonzalez offers that a deal for Donald may indeed have to make him the NFL’s highest-paid defensive player, at least during his extension years. Donald has two years remaining on his rookie contract — the first at $3.225MM and the fifth-year option season at $6.892MM. It’s unknown at this point if the Rams are talking about a deal that would go into effect in 2017 or ’18, or commence after those years conclude. It’s likely Donald’s camp would want an extension to begin as soon as possible, given the raise that would be attached to such an agreement.
Snead confirmed in March these talks were coming, and they look to be moving well. A Donald deal would stand to reset the market for defensive tackles, even though he could be categorized as a 3-4 end after the Wade Phillips-orchestrated move will shift the Rams’ base to that scheme. As a 4-3 defensive tackle, Donald’s moved into a class by himself. He rated as Pro Football Focus’ top interior defender last season. has two first-team All-Pro slates to his credit and hasn’t missed a game in his three years in St. Louis and Los Angeles.
The defensive line market stops at Ndamukong Suh‘s six-year, $114.3MM deal. Von Miller also signed for six years and $114MM-plus and became the league’s highest-paid defender last summer. Either way, Donald would be looking at a monstrous raise.
Los Angeles currently has barely $2MM in cap space, but that’s scheduled to expand considerably come 2018. Per OverTheCap, more than $54MM is set to be available for the Rams, before factoring in any cuts. This figure also doesn’t consider a possible long-term extension for Trumaine Johnson, who is anchored to Los Angeles’ payroll at a $16.742MM cap figure.