Sean McVay on Aaron Donald: It’s unfortunate he wasn’t at full strength today

Though Rams head coach Sean McVay told the Fox broadcast in a halftime interview that Aaron Donald wasn’t on a snap limitation, he clearly was not 100 percent after suffering an injury to his ribs last week.

Donald had only one tackle on the final stats sheet. He was also consistently shown on the sideline, playing fewer snaps than usual.

After the game, McVay said in his press conference that Donald is able to sub himself in and out of the game. The fact that Donald did so much illustrates how much he must’ve been hurting.

“We’ll have to really see, but he was going to do everything in his power to be out there with his teammates,” McVay said. “This guy is the epitome of a warrior. I love him. And the plan going in was seeing how he feels. He’s kind of always got the ability to tell us how he’s feeling. And so as far as the exact snap counts, there’s a lot of things going on during the course of the game that we’ve got to be in tune with.”

Toward the end of the game, an emotional Donald was shown on the sideline. McVay said that’s just an example of how much the defensive tackle cares.

“It means a lot to him,” McVay said. “And it’s unfortunate that he wasn’t at full strength today. But I just think the accountability, the ownership that he has, the expectations and the standards, he wants to be able to really make a big difference week-in and week-out. And I think in some instances, he felt like with the way that he feels like he can contribute, that’s where I think he was upset. But I love him and very thankful to work with players like him.”