For two straight years, in the last game of the season, cameras caught Aaron Donald crying after a game and telecast the images to tens of millions. He’s not much of a crier, really. But for him, opposite ends of his football life almost required tears.
“Last year,” Donald told me, “the thing about the Green Bay game, what broke my heart the most, I felt like I wasn’t at my best.” Donald tore rib cartilage the previous week in a wild-card win over Seattle, and his stat line in the 32-18 NFC divisional loss in Green Bay was incredibly un-Donald-like: zero solo tackles, one assisted tackle, zero sacks. Zero everything. The game darn near broke the three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
“I’m a piece to the puzzle. I’m not everything. That day, I wasn’t able to be that piece for my team,” Donald recalled. “That hurt, man. It really did. I don’t think I ever cried that much, you know, after a game. I was in the shower. I was in the locker room. I just couldn’t stop crying.”
Now it was last Thursday, four days after Super Bowl LVI, and Donald was on a Zoom call, absolutely hoarse. Ecstatically hoarse. “Sorry,” he said. “I really haven’t slept.”
Forgiven. Now, about this year’s tears?
“Happy tears,” Donald said.
“This,” he said, “is truly football heaven. Von Miller was saying that the whole time leading up to the game. We’re living in it right now.”
Each season, a week after the Super Bowl, I try to deconstruct the biggest play or plays of the game, diving deep into them with the biggest people in the game. Twice with Tom Brady, and once each with Eli Manning (exactly 10 years ago, after Manning-to-Manningham); the Philly coaches who designed the game-winner against New England; MVP Julian Edelman; MVP Patrick Mahomes; and,
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