His interest in coming back is for real.
All right.
Welcome in to the Beer Report for Friday, July 17th.
Training camp is drawing closer.
Most teams will be getting back into the office, the front office people, the coaches next week .
By the end of next week, a bunch of teams will be in practice, and by the week after that, pretty much everybody will be in training camp.
So it is.
Coming and as such, news is starting to pick up a little bit, so we’re gonna cover some of that to wrap up this week.
And the first piece of news for this Breer report is the potential return of Aaron Donald to the Los Angeles Rams.
Donald, of course, played 10 years in the NFL from 2014 to 2023.
It has been two years since he retired from the league.
And just a couple of things I think that we can do here to set the landscape.
First of all, The desire, the interest that Aaron Donald has shown in returning to the NFL really hasn’t dissipated.
Now, this first came up, of course , right after the Miles Garrett trade, which was on June 1st.
And Pat McAfee talked to Aaron Donald.
Aaron Donald expressed interest.
I think people were wondering, is this for real?
Is it not?
And I think we know now that at least his interest in coming back is for real.
He has been at the Rams facility, he has been training as if he’s gonna play this year, and my understanding is at this point, really what he’s looking to see is if he can play at the level he’s accustomed to.
Now, again, the bar for that is a lot higher than it is for a lot of other players.
And so that piece of it is important to remember.
I think another thing that’s sort of interesting about this is the Rams have not pushed him at all.
The Rams have said, we’d love to have you back.
But they’re gonna let him make his own decision.
And this isn’t a guy who spent the last two years wallowing in retirement.
Like I, I, it sounds to me from everything that I’ve heard, this is a guy who’s really enjoyed being retired, um, and he stayed in shape while he’s been retired, but this isn’t the sort of guy that is just, oh my God, I, I, I can’t do without football.
I think what he sees here is A, an opportunity to compete for a championship, B, an opportunity to play on what could become an all-time defensive line.
Um, and so, you know, he’s weighing those things, he’s weighing where he is physically with where he’s going to be, perhaps in November and December and January.
Um, now, I do think the Rams situation sets up nicely for him for a number of different reasons.
The first one is the one that started all this, which is the trade for Miles Garrett.
Having Miles Garrett on the defensive line with you.
It’s something that I think is enticing for Hall of Famers to play with other Hall of Famers.
So there’s that piece of it.
There’s also the fact that they’ve got good depth at defensive tackle position, and this is where it looks a little bit different than the Eric Weddle comeback of a few years ago.
When Eric Weddle came back, it was only for a month.
It was also in a, in a, in a place where the Rams were in desperate, in a desperate, desperate spot.
They were in dire straits at the safety position.
And as such, Eric Weddle played on 3rd down and in the nickel in the 1st game, and then after that, he was full go.
The Rams would not have to do that with Aaron Donald.
They’ve got Kobe Turner, they got Braden Fisk, they’ve got Punafod, they’ve got Tyler Davis.
They really like their defensive tackle group.
They look at it as a strength of the team.
They’re also very strong on the edge with, of course, Garrett, Byron Young, Josiah Stewart, somebody they drafted in the 2nd round last year.
So that defensive line group will allow them to manage Aaron Donald a certain way, which I think would appeal to him because you’re gonna have the opportunity to keep yourself fresh throughout the year, not that he wouldn’t want to play a full boat of snaps.
I think that when it gets down to brass tacks, he’s gonna play as much as he can, but that at least gives him an opportunity, um, to, to, to, to really compete.
Um, at his highest level and sustained over the course of a year.
Then the third thing, of course, would be the opportunity to compete for a championship.
We know where the Rams were last year.
They were right on the doorstep.
The NFC title game, they were toe to toe with the Seahawks.
They didn’t get it done, but they, they, they played really well on offense in that game, and now this defense is bringing in.
Trent McDuffie, Jalen Watson, and Miles Garrett.
So what was a really good defense last year that had some holes, now it looks like a more complete unit, one ready to compete for a championship.
And so, um, this would add a layer to Aaron Donald’s legacy is pretty incredible.
I think it’d be a nightmare for offenses to deal with.
You’re talking about dealing with all those big defensive tackles on 1st and 2nd down, then you slip Aaron Donald in there on 3rd down, it’s a totally different matchup, be really difficult for an offensive lineman to deal with.
Uh, love the idea of it, love to see him back.
I think this is really gonna come down to, as I said earlier.
Whether or not he thinks he can get back to a level he’s accustomed to, and that does not mean the very prime of his career.
It means like I can go out there and be a dominant player when I need to be.
So we’ll see if he feels like he can get there.
OK.
Um, our second topic for today, Alvin Kamara has restructured his contract with the New Orleans Saints, basically locking in that he will be a Saint this year.
Count me among the people who thought when they signed Travis Achian from the, from the Jaguars.
That they were probably moving on from Alvin Kamara.
Ech is a very similar player to Kamara.
If you look at the way that those two are deployed and have been deployed over the course of their career, they’re these slash sort of running backs, guys who can line up receiver, move around the formation, catch the ball.
Um, there’s a lot of similarity between the two of them, so there were a lot of people that thought Kamara was probably on the outs and maybe on his way to Denver to reunite with Sean Payton.
I think what got us here is that Alvin Kamara really wants to be in New Orleans.
And I think that’s the thing that you really have to pay attention to here is that this is a player that, you know, this will be his 10th year.
Um, he’s obviously a decorated New Orleans Saint, a celebrated New Orleans Saint, and I think he’s got an opportunity to be part of a pretty good team this year, a team that rallied and almost won the NFC South at the end of last year.
Now you look at them on offense.
They’ve got Echin and, and, and Kamara in the backfield.
They’ve got Oscar Del who they drafted in the 2nd round at tight end, chance to be a really good player.
2 1st-round picks at tackle and Tali Fuaga and Kelvin Banks, and then 2 1st-round picks at receiver and Chris Olave and Jordan Tyson.
So, if Tyler Shuck can play well at quarterback, that could be a really good offense.
There’s some veterans on defense.
I think Kamara really wanted to be a part of that, and that’s why we are where we are, because I think there are, there is a world where a player like that sees somebody younger than him coming in who plays the position he plays the same way he plays it and wants out, but that was never the intention of Kamara, and that was proven.
With his decision to accept a restructured contract.
Finally, our third topic for today, um, there will be an owners’ meeting in, in, in August, a special owners’ meeting to vote on and approve.
Um, Vo, uh, Koslaw, his wife Nero, and his son Neil as the new owners of the Seattle Seahawks.
The sale price is $9.
612 billion.
That, of course, is a record.
The escalation here is incredible.
Back to 2014, the bills were sold for $1.4 billion.
2018, the Panthers were sold for, I believe the number was 2.
275 billion.
More recently, the Broncos go for 4.65 billion and the Commanders go for 6.05 billion.
So, this is a further escalation in the valuations of these franchises.
This is, of course, a win for all the NFL owners, even if they didn’t get to that magic number of 10 billion.
And so here’s what you need to know about the family.
I, I do think Neil, the son, is going to be heavily involved if not running the team on a day to day basis.
Um, the parents, of course, are involved and are interested in being involved in the NFL and they wouldn’t, you know, have done this if they weren’t, of course, but Um, you know, the, the, the, Neil is, is, is, is a young guy who’s got a great reputation within the NFL.
Um, he’s very sharp, and he was actually a football operations intern for the Niners years ago.
Um, he was the primary point of contact for the family when they bought 3.1% of the Niners last year and started to move their eyes towards becoming primary owners of a team.
And I think that that’s really the thing that you want to look at with owners these days.
These have become such great investments and I just mentioned how the valuations have escalated.
There are businessmen who get involved now in pro sports, and we’ve seen it across pro sports that are in it for the business aspect of it.
It’s a great investment to buy one of these teams, especially in the era of legalized gambling and Those sorts of guys sometimes run the teams as businesses, which isn’t always good and which doesn’t always mean that you’re gonna be winning on the field because when it gets down to brass tacks, a lot of these guys in general are more competitive about the business aspect of football than they are about winning games on the field.
So, the fact that you’ve got a guy now who’s going to have a big Voice in the organization in, in, in Neil Koslaw tells me that they are going to continue to invest in the football operation, continue to give their football people the resources they need.
And that’s something you’ve always had in Seattle, whether it was Paul Allen or Jodie Allen going back to when Mike Holmgren was the coach.
They made an investment to get him, went to a Super Bowl with Matt Hasselbeck, and of course, more recently with John Schneider and Pete Carroll.
Um, and then John Schneider and Mike McDonald, um, they’ve won 2 Super Bowls, and the football operations people have always had what they needed to succeed.
And the interest of the Koslaw family in the game of football is important.
It’s worth watching with every one of these sales, and Neil’s experience with the Niners, I think would indicate that that part of the equation will be there.
And if it is, that’s great news for Seahawks.
Fans.
Appreciate you guys coming out.
As always, you can leave your comments down below here on the YouTube page or you can get to me on social media at Albert Breer on Twitter, at Albert Abreer on Facebook, at Albert_Breer on Instagram.
Again, camp’s coming.
We’re almost there.
We’ll see you guys next week.
