Rams' Legend Aaron Donald Puts Football in the Past

It's officially over. It's a reality no one truly wanted to believe, but Aaron Donald is not coming back to the Rams or the NFL, making it clear that his playing days are far behind him.

The fans dreamed as the franchise was forced to move on, and Donald kept looking at the TV on Sundays and knew that football wasn't for him anymore.

Donald is set to be inducted into the Pittsburgh Panthers Hall of Fame and thus appeared on a radio interview.

“As far as playing football, I don't miss it,” Donald told Pat Bostick on the Panthers Insider Show. “I don’t even have the passion or excitement to want to play football. I will always love football, but once you lose the passion, it was time to walk away.”

Donald's workout videos have made some hope he was preparing for a return, but for a man who has his family, his type of accomplishments, all the money he could ever dream, and ambitions away from the football field, football was what he did but it didn't define who he was and it won't define him moving forward.

“I worked my ass off to put myself in the position today to do things like this now. It truly is special. It’s emotional and I get to share these moments with my family, my kids,” Donald said.

“I always set goals for myself to do so many special things, but just putting the body of work in and really putting the time in and really working my behind off. “I surpassed anything that I thought was possible by putting the body of work in.”

If there was any doubt, this should close that chapter. There are only a handful of players who have returned to professional football after two or more seasons away, and none of them were able to be successful for an extended period of time in the NFL, nor did they contribute in any meaningful way to overall team success.

As Donald moves on to other things, it's important to remember that this is how the game is supposed to be played. Play it until you don't want to and don't let football's end be the end of your story.

For Donald, he has many more chapters waiting to be written.