Super Bowl 2022: Reports of Aaron Donald's retirement might have been premature

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Aaron Donald said all week there was only one thing missing from his career.

He topped even that.

The All-World defensive lineman sealed the Rams’ victory in Super Bowl LVI on Sunday, nearly sacking Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow for a third time but twisting him around and forcing him to flick a desperate incompletion on fourth-and-1 with 39 seconds left.

"Mission accomplished," Donald said of adding the championship to his resume.

But is it mission over?

There was plenty of speculation before the game began that Donald would consider retirement if the Rams won the Super Bowl. It was even reported by Rodney Harrison and Michele Tafoya on NBC’s broadcast. But speaking to a small group of reporters off the postgame podium, Donald insisted he "never said that" to anyone before the game.

What he did not say is if he thought it.

"I’m just in the moment right now," he said, surrounded by his four children. "I’m enjoying this with my family . . . I’m just going to enjoy this for today, well, for a couple days. It’s a blessing."

Donald certainly has nothing left to prove. In eight NFL seasons, he has been a Pro Bowler eight times, an All-Pro seven times and defensive player of the year three times. On Sunday, he made the most important defensive play in Rams history since Mike Jones tackled Kevin Dyson at the 1 to seal Super Bowl XXXIV.

Those close to Donald did not seem to think he will walk away despite the near-perfect ending that his current situation would present.

"This feeling right here, there’s nothing like it, and it’s addictive," said teammate Von Miller, who became a two-time Super Bowl champion on Sunday. "He’s done so much, but this feeling [of winning] is great and it just makes you want it more and more and more. He’s definitely capped off a great career if he chooses to do that, but I just can’t see him walking away from this."

Donald, 30, would be a first-ballot Hall of Famer if he did retire, even without Sunday’s win. The Super Bowl only makes it a complete career, if not a completed one.

"I always set high goals and standards for myself, but I surpassed everything I ever thought I wanted to do," Donald said. "I thought coming in, I wanted to be an All-Pro and a Pro Bowler. I had a lot of individual success. But I would have never thought in a million years I’d be sitting here right now with the success I had in the short amount of time in this league and to be a world champion . . . To be able to look back at what I've accomplished is truly a blessing."

More important than winning the Super Bowl, perhaps, was fulfilling the promise he made to his daughter Jaeda three years ago when the Rams were in Super Bowl LIII against the Patriots. Back then, he promised the 5-year-old that they could play in the confetti after the game, but the Rams lost, so there was no such celebration.

On Sunday night, Jaeda, now 8, stood next to her father with a fistful of blue and gold paper she had scooped up from the field in the postgame revelry.

"We had some fun," Donald said.

Said Jaeda: "Yeah."

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.