Aaron Donald is back with the Los Angeles Rams. It actually happened. The all-time player signed a one-year deal to return to the Rams, and it can be worth up to $30 million, so he absolutely got a major payday despite being out of the league for a bit.
The Rams likely don't sign Donald to that contract unless they have extremely high hopes for him and plan on playing him a ton. While it could take a few weeks for Donald to hit his stride and reach whatever ceiling he has, this is a legitimate, major move.
Even if Donald is 60 percent of the player he was his final year in the NFL back in 2023, he'd still be a top-10 player at his position. That did get us thinking - how much different would the best defenses in the NFL rank with Donald back with the Rams? Let's rank the best defenses in the league with this news now being official.
NFL Power Rankings: Ranking the league's best defenses after the Aaron Donald blockbuster return
10. Los Angeles Chargers
The Los Angeles Chargers come in at No. 10 in our defense rankings, as they ranked 5th in yards allowed per game last year, so this was a stingy, tough defense. The main issue, though, is that Jesse Minter got hired by the Baltimore Ravens as their next head coach, so the Chargers defense doesn't have their top coordinator anymore.
There are some talented players on this unit, but it's not an overwhelmingly talented group. Still, though, they've played very sound football the past two seasons, and I would struggle to see how that foundation just isn't there in 2026, even with Minter no longer in the picture.
9. Jacksonville Jaguars
A huge indicator if a defense is 'for real' or not is how they stop the run, and no team in the NFL stopped the run better than the Jacksonville Jaguars. They were the only team in the NFL that allowed fewer than 90 yards per game on the ground, actually.
Jacksonville was actually in the bottom-half in terms of receiving yards allowed per game. With that said, the team won 13 games and captured the AFC South title, and that doesn't happen without a strong defense.
Jacksonville also notably ranked 2nd in the league with 31 turnovers, and had a +13 turnover differential, which was good for 3rd-best. This team took away the football and stopped the run at a high rate.
Losing linebacker Devin Lloyd is going to hurt, though, so I would not be shocked if a slight regression hit the unit in the 2026 season, but I'm not sure it'd be anything took radical.
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