Aaron Donald wins third NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award

LOS ANGELES — Like all the impressive accomplishments in his illustrious, seven-year NFL career, Aaron Donald once again earned this one.

The Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle was named the NFL’s Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year for a third time at Saturday’s NFL Honors ceremony.

Donald led the Rams with 13.5 sacks, even though he regularly faced double-team blocks most games.

According to Next Gen Sports, Donald led all interior defensive lineman in pressure rate for a fourth consecutive season (13.9%, min 200 pass rushes).

Donald joins J.J. Watt and Lawrence Taylor as the only players to win the award three times in league history.

Donald, 29, has earned an invitation to the Pro Bowl all seven years he’s been in the NFL, and is second in Rams’ team history in sacks with 85.5 in 110 regular-season games. Donald leads the NFL with 131 tackles for loss during the regular season from 2014 to 2020.

The Rams finished the 2020 regular season with the No. 1-ranked defense in points scored (18.5 per game) and yards allowed (281.9 per game).

“I just go out there and my main job is to try to make as many plays as I can or effect the play as best as I can and trying to help my guys to win,” Donald said about his dominance from snap to snap. “I just go out there and play hard because I want to be productive. I want to win games and I want to get to a certain point where at the end of the year, we can hold up that trophy.

“That’s the ultimate goal and for us to do that, it’s not just me, but everybody has to have that same mindset to dominate, effect plays, want to make plays. When you have guys like that’s flying around, good things happen.”