Alexander: With Aaron Donald’s return, are the Rams unstoppable?

So does this mean the Rams are ruining the NFL, just like their L.A. neighbors are supposedly ruining baseball?

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Even in a salary cap league, the rich can get richer. Or look at it this way: It didn’t take the Rams long after returning to Southern California to discern that with so many fan options to choose from, the teams that are rewarded with fan devotion are those who prioritize winning.

That priority, and the organizational commitment – from owner Stan Kroenke, team president Kevin Demoff, General Manager Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay on down – recaptured the attention of the best available player not yet in uniform.

Consider that when Aaron Donald ended his first retirement from the sport on Sunday, his official notification – a two-word memo to Commissioner Roger Goodell’s office that said, “I’m back” – was exactly the same as Michael Jordan’s statement, through agent David Falk, upon ending his first retirement and coming back to the Chicago Bulls toward the end of the 1994-95 NBA season.

MJ went on to win three more titles with the Bulls in ’96, ’97 and ’98, for those who have forgotten.

And Donald’s return to an already stacked roster on both sides of the ball makes the Rams a prohibitive favorite to win their second Super Bowl in five years, both in their own building. Is that Jordanesque enough for you?

The eight-time first-team All-Pro and three-time AP Defensive Player of the Year adds to a defense that had already strengthened itself, acquiring fellow pass rushing monster Myles Garrett from Cleveland and cornerbacks (and past Kansas City Super Bowl winners) Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson this offseason. All of that, plus a high-powered offense led by reigning league MVP Matthew Stafford, obviously got Donald’s attention.

“Seeing what was being done with this team, the pieces that were getting brought here, I was like, ‘Okay, it’s a complete team,’” Donald told reporters at the Rams’ Woodland Hills facility on Sunday afternoon. “And then you see other moves they (made), and I was like, ‘OK, I wish I was still out there playing about now.’ You have conversations and then start bringing it to fruition, right?”

This was, he said, “13, 14 weeks of just nonstop grinding” to get to this point – and, presumably to determine if he really wanted to do this.

Not all of that effort was in the gym or on the field, either. Consider, for example, the social media post on Sunday from his wife Erica as word spread of Donald’s return:

“I let him out the house, y’all.”

(And one of the replies to that post was from former Rams quarterback Jim Everett: A praying hands emoji, presumably on behalf of quarterbacks everywhere.)

There were “a lot of conversations,” Donald said. “I think my wife played a huge part of me making this decision, period, because if the wife wasn’t happy, it wasn’t going to get done. I got to make sure that the household was good, the kids were OK with it all. Then having the hard conversations, figuring things out, what I wanted to do. If I was to do it, how would we do it?

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“My wife was on board. She said, ‘If you want to do this, [I’m] with [you] 100 percent,’ and there were days when I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ She talked to me enough to be like, ‘You want to do this. Don’t make no decisions faster than what you need to make a decision. Take your time.’ She played a huge part of me figuring this out because it really wasn’t an easy decision.”

Certain people might react to this next statement with raised eyebrows, but here goes: Guys, listen to your wives. They usually know what they’re talking about.

This couldn’t be a half-hearted commitment. Donald said he knew for two weeks that this was the way he was going to go, and he talked to McVay nearly every day of that span. “I know he got annoyed with … all the questions in camp every damn day,” Donald said. “I felt bad for him at that point, but I was doing everything I needed to do to give myself peace of mind and see if I can do it.

“I just wanted to take my time and make the right decision, because once you choose to come back you’re all the way back in. You can’t be halfway in … I had to get to that point where I felt like I’m 100% committed to playing football again.”

Remember the end of Super Bowl LVI, in Februrary of 2022 at SoFi Stadium? Donald wrapped up Cincinnati quarterback Joe Burrow and forced an incompletion on a fourth-and-1 play with 39 seconds left, preserving the Rams’ 23-20 victory and their first title since returning to L.A.

Then he took his helmet off and started pointing at the third finger on his left hand, not a subtle message at all: After eight NFL seasons and tons of individual plaudits, he was getting a championship ring. That clip has been shown quite a bit the past couple of days on local TV and probably will be shown some more in the days to come.

Now … well, did we say the Rams were prohibitive favorites to win another? After Donald’s announcement, their odds are +500 or +550 depending on the sports book, according to Vegas Insider. Buffalo is +1000 and the rest of the field is +1100 and up.

Strange things can happen, and certainly other teams will have chances to make statements of their own. Two years ago in Philadelphia the Rams were 15 yards and 1:14 from a come-from-behind victory in the snow, but fell short.

This past January they reached the NFC championship game in Seattle thanks to several late-game comebacks but fell short against the Seahawks. (And if it weren’t for Zach Charbonnet picking up a loose ball in the end zone in the late stages of the teams’ Dec. 18 game in Seattle, for what turned out to be a successful two-point conversion in the Seahawks’ 38-37 overtime victory, the Rams might have won that regular-season game and gone on to host the conference final.)

In both cases, they lost playoff games to the eventual Super Bowl champions. Do you suppose maybe it’s their turn this time?

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