Paul Zeise: Aaron Donald was so good he might be underrated

PITTSBURGH — I still remember the first day of pads of the 2010 Pitt football training camp like it was yesterday.

Dave Wannstedt and Greg Gattuso had built the Panthers defensive line into something pretty special during their first four years. Wannstedt's motto was always "I've never been around a great defense whose defensive line didn't kick the tail of the other team's offensive line on a regular basis," and his track record from 2005 until that season spoke for itself.

Gattuso, however, told me going into this particular camp, "We have a freshmen coming in this year that might be better than all of them." And of course he was a local kid, so I was somewhat familiar with him. Still, he wasn't a big-name recruit, didn't have a huge offer sheet (or really much of an offer sheet at all beyond Pitt), and the reason he was discovered by Pitt was because they were recruiting one of his older teammates.

His name was Aaron Donald, and while he was a bit of an unknown quantity back then, there isn't a football fan, observer or coach who doesn't know exactly who he is now. Donald, whose number will be retired by Pitt in November at the Panthers' game against Notre Dame, is the best interior defensive linemen that's ever played the game of football.

He is the best I have ever covered, the best I have ever seen, and the best I have ever heard or read about, and he has deserved every accolade he has received.

That's why I believe no matter what level of great you think Donald was as a player, you are probably underrating him. He was every bit as great as you think and then some.

And it was evident he was destined for greatness from that first practice in pads during his freshman season. Wannstedt wanted to redshirt Donald to let him get a little bigger and stronger, but Gattuso convinced him to let camp play out before any decision like that would be made. Gattuso said he was more than pretty sure what they had in Donald but knew it would ultimately be Wannstedt's call.

Donald began on the scout team, like most players destined for a redshirt, but that first day in pads it was very clear he needed to be bumped up to the depth chart. The scout team defense was playing against the first-team offense in live, full-speed, 11-on-11 drills, but the offense couldn't get any work done because none of the linemen could block Donald.

He just kept blowing up every play whether it was a run or pass. After one play in which he ate a double-team block and nearly decapitated the running back in the backfield, Wannstedt yelled at the defensive coaches, "Get him out of there, we can't run anything with him in there."

That was pretty much the end of the idea that Donald would be a redshirt. Gattuso told me he wasn't surprised at all because that was what he observed when he was at Penn Hills recruiting one of Donald's older teammates, Dan Mason. Donald was so disruptive that by midway through the second quarter, Gattuso was yelling out to Donald, "You are offered, you have a Pitt offer."

I've said this many times — there were four times in my 20-plus years of covering Pitt that the first day in pads told me everything I needed to know. The first was Larry Fitzgerald, then Darrelle Revis, then LeSean McCoy and the fourth was Donald, whose speed, strength and quickness — even as an 18-year-old freshman going against 23-year-old upperclassmen — was off the charts.

Donald, who was a three-star recruit coming out of high school, will be the 11th Panther to have his number retired and only the second defensive lineman to earn the honor. He was excellent his sophomore season, dominant his junior season and then turned in one of the best seasons by any player ever his senior year, as he won the Lombardi Award, Nagurski Trophy, Bednarik Award, Outland Trophy and was the ACC Defensive Player of the Year and a unanimous first-team All-American.

He played in the NFL for the Rams for 10 seasons, was first-team All-Pro eight times, was a three-time defensive player of the year, won a Super Bowl, was on the NFL's All-Decade Team (2010s) and will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer the minute he becomes eligible. And I will say this — if he isn't a unanimous Hall of Fame selection, whatever idiot decides not to vote for him should lose their ballot and never be allowed to vote again.

One of the best things about Donald is he has never forgot his roots, has been very generous in giving back to both Penn Hills and Pitt, and is clearly invested in those communities. In fact, the bottom floor of their practice facility in Pittsburgh's South Side was named the Aaron Donald Football Performance Center after he made a seven-figure donation to the football program.

Donald was special in that he was a dominant pass rusher from an interior defensive line position. He wasn't an edge rusher, yet he had 111 sacks and 176 tackles for loss in 10 seasons. In 2018, he had 20.5 sacks and 25 tackles for loss despite facing double-teams on most downs. He was simply too quick, too strong and too powerful for most offensive linemen to handle, and he dominated most games he played.

Pitt is certainly doing the right thing in retiring Donald's number, as he is clearly one of the best players that ever wore that uniform. But it goes way beyond Pitt, as Donald is a one-of-a-kind player who quite often made playing in the NFL look too easy. That is how good he was, and it is why I believe that despite all of his accolades, he is still underrated.

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