Rich Weighs In on the Swirling Intrigue around a Possible Aaron Donald Return to the Rams

The man who blew up Monday's show came back to explain himself. Les Snead, the Rams general manager behind the Myles Garrett trade, walked Rich through how a move that sounded like fantasy football became real.

It started with rejection. When the Rams first reached out, after Cleveland adjusted Garrett's contract, the answer was no, and Snead understood why. Garrett, he said, will be on the Browns' Mount Rushmore someday, and Cleveland believed he belonged in their uniform. So Snead simply kept knocking, calling and texting Andrew Berry until, somewhere between March and May and into draft season, a no started to feel like a maybe.

The pursuit, it turns out, is old. Confronted with a report, surfaced by Albert Breer, that the Rams first inquired back in 2022, Snead half-remembered it. That was the spring after their Super Bowl, when Von Miller left for Buffalo, and they were hunting a replacement. He joked he would have to consult his journal to confirm.

Snead leaned on a poker frame borrowed from his friend Annie Duke, who argues football is more poker than chess because of the randomness of the draw. Trading for Garrett, he admitted, was not a plan you could enter an offseason counting on. The intentional part was adding to the defense, which began with the Trent McDuffie trade and the signing of Jaylen Watson. Garrett was the lucky card that turned over.

He confirmed the timing was deliberate, too. Moving after June 1 not only helped Cleveland's 2026 cap, it left the rest of the conference unable to answer through the draft. The hard part, as always, was price. You can want something badly, Snead said, and still find it too expensive, like buying real estate in Los Angeles, which Garrett, who already spends plenty of time in town, will now do.

The Ty Simpson pick suddenly makes more sense in that light. Snead acknowledged the Garrett scenario was questionable but discussed internally when the Rams spent the 13th pick on a quarterback rather than getting Stafford immediate help. They worked through it as one of many draft-day possibilities.

On Stafford, Snead is in no hurry to project an ending. The Rams take it year to year, partly for Matthew's sake, because he pours so much into the job. Every year, roughly a day after the season ends, Stafford tells him he wants to run it back. The arm, Snead marveled, could throw 100 miles per hour at age 60. What will eventually decide it is the grit the position demands, not the talent, and right now he is not slowing down.

Then came Aaron Donald. For the first time since he retired, Snead believes Donald is genuinely tempted, sensing a flame that could relight. But he knows Donald would never helicopter in for a cameo. He would want to start at the bottom with his teammates and earn it, which is exactly what he would be weighing.

Rich had a wrinkle to deliver. Cooper Kupp had been on earlier and said he texted Donald to forbid the comeback, declaring he had already nipped it in the bud. Snead took it in stride, noting that Kupp might be a touch biased, and floated a counter. Maybe, he laughed, it is Cooper who should retire instead. Fair trade.