NFC Notes: Aaron Donald, Sean McVay, Rams, Seahawks

Rams

The Rams knew they would be making more notable subtractions than additions this offseason, especially on defense. So they made sure to give DT Aaron Donald a heads up and get his temperature on the situation. 

“He’s a great competitor,” McVay said via ESPN’s Sarah Barshop. “He loves a challenge, but I think you don’t want to catch people off guard. And the best thing that you can do, and what I’ve learned and it certainly hasn’t been perfect, is let’s try to do that. Try to be able to give people an honest understanding of where we’re headed.”

His response to them was encouraging. 

“I just said, ‘Bring in guys that’s hungry, that’s just willing to work, and that’s willing to just find ways to tune up and not be satisfied with just being here,'” Donald said. “Obviously, you getting a bunch of new guys, and as long as they come in working with the mindset to want to get better we can win with that.”

There’s still a long season left but so far the Rams have been better than expected despite going so young. There will be growing pains but the Rams believe they’ll be a better team for it at the end, especially with Donald helping to show the way to a young a team. 

“There’s nothing more powerful than showing instead of saying, and so he shows what it looks like,” McVay said. “He shows what it looks like to do right in the meeting room, on the practice field, the way that he competes relentlessly in every single opportunity he gets. The great ones elevate people around them, and I think we would all be in agreement and in alignment that certainly Aaron is checking all those boxes.”

Rams

For Week 3 at least, the offensive line was again a major problem point for the Rams. They gave up six sacks in the loss to the Bengals and the injury to LT Alaric Jackson was a big reason why. Rams HC Sean McVay elected to stick with second-year OT Zachary Thomas instead of moving RG Joseph Noteboom back to his natural position, reasoning that making just one change instead of two would be better for the line as a whole. But then Thomas was in over his head and the Rams didn’t do enough to help him with chips, slides and other coaching adjustments. 

“You could talk about that, Zach Thomas had done a really good job with a lot of the repetitions he had gotten (in camp/practice) and felt like making a two-man switch wasn’t in the best interest, we’ll look at the tape and figure out if that’s something we want to do moving forward, if Alaric is out an extended period of time,” McVay said via the Athletic’s Jourdan Rodrigue. “There are (conversations), but they’re doing a lot of different things where you need to be able to use all five eligibles,” he added, referring to the players who would be eligible receivers. “There will be, certainly, some things that we can look at. Wish I did better. There were some opportunities for us to be able to make some plays, and to try to be able to get through some of those downs. That’s certainly something that I definitely need to be able to look at.”

Seahawks

• Josina Anderson reports that the Seahawks tried out free agent QB Anthony Brown on Tuesday.