On the list of people on the planet you would not want unhappy with you, Aaron Donald ranks near the top.
The fearsome Rams pass rusher spoke to Greg Bishop of Sports Illustrated for a profile, in which he revealed that he was not expecting Rodney Harrison to share details of their “personal” conversation about potential retirement on Super Bowl Sunday.
In a pregame chat, Harrison, the NBC Sports analyst and former NFL safety, told Donald he could play for another 15 years.
“Honestly, you never know,” Donald told Harrison. “This could be my last year.”
Donald had expected the conversation to stay private.
“I wouldn’t expect [Harrison] to do something like that,” Donald told SI, about Harrison’s decision to break the news on NBC. “I wouldn’t want him to.”
However, Donald did not tell SI that Harrison’s report was inaccurate, and acknowledged that there are familial reasons why he might still consider walking away from football despite remaining at his physical peak.
As the SI profile explained, two of Donald’s three children live most of the way across the country from Los Angeles, in Pittsburgh, and it has weighed heavily on him not being able to see them as often as he would like.
“I’m thinking about my kids, first, always,” Donald told SI. “People who know me understand why.”