Aaron Donald’s return changes the ceiling of an already loaded Rams defense.

Los Angeles now pairs Donald with Myles Garrett, giving the Rams two players who have combined for five Defensive Player of the Year awards. Donald provides the interior disruption while Garrett attacks from the edge, creating protection problems that opposing offenses cannot easily solve.

For fantasy, the Rams DST gets a meaningful upgrade, while quarterbacks and offensive lines facing Los Angeles inherit a more difficult weekly matchup.

Upgrade the Rams DST and move Los Angeles onto the premium-defense radar.

Do not assume Donald immediately returns to his former workload. Monitor his ramp-up and Week 1 availability before projecting a full complement of snaps.

Aaron Donald is officially back.

The three-time Defensive Player of the Year ended his 2½-year retirement and returned to the Los Angeles Rams on a one-year contract.

The bigger story is what Los Angeles has assembled around him.

The Rams already traded for Myles Garrett, giving them one of football’s premier edge rushers. Now Donald returns to the interior of a defensive front that also includes Byron Young, Kobie Turner and Braden Fiske.

Donald and Garrett have combined to win five Defensive Player of the Year awards.

Donald also walked away while he could still play. He recorded 8.5 sacks during his final season in 2023 and finished his first stint with the Rams with a franchise-record 111 career sacks.

There is one immediate question: workload.

Donald is 35 and has not played an NFL game in more than two years. Los Angeles will need to manage his return carefully before we assume he immediately resumes his former snap volume.

This is bigger than Aaron Donald coming out of retirement.

The Rams just added one of the greatest interior defenders in NFL history to a front that already features Myles Garrett. Offenses can slide protection toward Garrett. They can double Donald. Doing both consistently becomes much harder.

We still need to see what Donald looks like after more than two years away, and expecting peak Aaron Donald immediately would be aggressive.

But Los Angeles does not need peak Donald for this move to matter.

If he can still command attention inside, Garrett becomes even more dangerous outside, and the entire Rams defense becomes harder to attack.

The Rams DST just became considerably more interesting.