Former Los Angeles Rams DT Aaron Donald grew up in Pittsburgh but never played for his hometown Steelers. He thought about it at one point early in his career and it was a near-constant source of speculation, but it never happened. That didn’t mean he didn’t get inspiration from the Steelers. It just came from an unlikely source: former Pittsburgh WR Antonio Brown.
Donald joined former Rams teammate Chris Long on the Green Light podcast on Thursday. One of the recurring themes was how hard of a worker Donald was. He recalled watching how others worked, and Brown stuck out to him.
“Even early in my career, I always felt like I was always a hard worker,” Donald said. “I start following people like, you know, AB when he was with the Steelers in his prime. And I feel like I have a good workout, and I’ll be seeing his stuff and I’m like all right. And then he’ll post something else for like a second workout that day and stuff like that. I be like, damn, I feel like he outworking me, you know? It wasn’t just my position, I ain’t want nobody to feel like they was outworking me.”
It’s crazy to think that the most dominant defensive lineman of this era looked to a wide receiver for inspiration. That just shows the mentality that Donald had. Despite playing completely different positions and having completely different athletic expectations, Donald didn’t want to feel like Brown worked harder than he did.
Despite all of Brown’s issues over the past few years, he was arguably the NFL’s best wide receiver in his prime. You don’t have seven 1,000 yard-plus seasons without working hard. In his nine seasons with the Steelers, he caught 837 passes for 11,207 yards and 74 touchdowns. He averaged 13.4 yards per catch. That’s an incredible athlete.
And Donald would look at Brown working out twice a day and be upset that Brown might be outworking him. No wonder Donald was so good. He had 111 sacks in 154 regular-season games along with 176 tackles for a loss, 260 quarterback hits, 24 forced fumbles, and 543 combined tackles. He played in another 11 playoff games and added six more sacks and 10 more tackles for a loss.
There might never be another defensive tackle like Aaron Donald. Not in on-field performance and not in sheer determination to outwork even an elite wide receiver like Antonio Brown in his prime.
You can watch the entire interview with Aaron Donald and Chris Long below:
