Bills OC’s plan for Aaron Donald: ‘Maybe he can miss the bus’
Without question, the first player an offensive coach looks at when game planning for the Rams defense is Aaron Donald. That’s no disrespect to Jalen Ramsey, but Donald disrupts an offense more than a top cornerback does.
The Bills will have the tall task of slowing down Donald this week and while it’s still early in the game-planning process, offensive coordinator Brian Daboll has a plan for the dominant defensive lineman.
“Maybe he can miss the bus,” he joked, before going on to rave about Donald’s skill set. “Just started to watch his first two games. Look, he’s as premier of a lineman that I’ve seen. He’s a disruptive force. He’s got power, he’s got strength, he’s got speed, he’s got quickness, he’s got leverage, he’s got motor, he plays intelligently. There’s plays on tape that we watch and you go, ‘Oh boy.’ He’s hard to get to, he can play multiple spots, and they have a lot of other good players, too.”
The Eagles did a good job negating Donald on Sunday, holding him to just one tackle with no quarterback hits or tackles for a loss. That doesn’t happen often, and Donald will be motivated to bounce back with a better performance against Buffalo.
But the thing with the Rams defense is that even when Donald doesn’t have a great game, you still have to worry about Ramsey, who locked down every receiver he matched up with in Sunday’s win against Philadelphia.
“And then you’ve got a corner like Jalen, who’s a premier [player] at his [position], too,” Daboll said. “They’re tough. That’s why they’re only giving up 18 points or whatever it is in the early part of the season to two good offenses, so we definitely have our work cut out for us.”
The Bills are coming off a 31-28 win over the Dolphins and look like one of the better teams in the league. They’re sixth in points scored and third in yards, while only allowing the fifth-fewest yards in the NFL. Granted, they played the Dolphins and Jets, but it’s Josh Allen and the offense that have looked surprisingly strong.
The Rams defense has given up just 36 total points this season, but they’ll once again be tested in Week 3.
