There may not be a defensive player in the NFL who requires more attention and effort to stop than Aaron Donald. That’s been evident for most of his career, but especially in the last three-plus seasons.
Yet, it’s almost as if we’ve become immune to his greatness.
Just look at his first five games of this year, for example. He has 7.5 sacks, six tackles for loss, 13 quarterback hits and a league-high 33 pressures. It’s by far the best start of his career, yet it’s not getting the attention it probably would be if we hadn’t grown so accustomed to seeing him dominate week in and week out.
If you look at how he started each of the previous six seasons in his career, there’s almost no comparison. Here are his numbers through the first five games of each season in his career. (note: 2017 includes his first five games after missing Week 1)
| Sacks | Tackles | TFL | QB hits | |
| 2014 | 1.0 | 13 | 6 | 2 |
| 2015 | 3.5 | 23 | 9 | 5 |
| 2016 | 2.0 | 16 | 6 | 13 |
| 2017* | 2.0 | 14 | 5 | 10 |
| 2018 | 3.0 | 14 | 3 | 6 |
| 2019 | 1.0 | 13 | 5 | 4 |
| 2020 | 7.5 | 17 | 6 | 13 |
In 2017 and 2018, Donald won Defensive Player of the Year. He had 11.0 sacks and 15 tackles for loss in 2017 before really blowing up the following year. He led the league in sacks with 20.5 and tackles for loss (25) in 2018, and last year, he was tops in the NFL again with 20 tackles for loss; he also had 12.5 sacks last season, second-best in his career.
Donald is currently averaging 1.5 sacks per game, which puts him on pace for 24 sacks in 16 games. That would surpass Michael Strahan’s NFL record of 22.5 in a single season, which would be absolutely mind-blowing for a defensive tackle.
Yet, despite Donald’s red-hot start, he’s barely the favorite to win Defensive Player of the Year this season. At BetMGM, he’s +300, which is slightly better than Myles Garrett (+400) and T.J. Watt (+500).
Racking up four sacks in a single game like Donald did on Sunday against Washington certainly helped his pace immensely, but he was playing at an extremely high level before then.
He’s now on a record pace and off to the best start of his career – all with a shaky 49ers offensive line up next on the schedule. He could reach 10 sacks before Week 6 is over.