Seriously, it's the most pointless stat out there.
Let's suppose Donald misses 8 games and plays 8 games. So you can look at how the Rams did during that 16 game season to see the difference.
But then you have to factor in:
Opponent
Whether the opponent had anything to play for
How the opponent was playing compared to the rest of their season
Whether one player was playing against a team that was devastated by IR and the other wasn't
How well the O played so how long the D was on the field
What was the weather like
How did the opposition change their game plan
Did the opposition QB have a good day and play above his normal standard or below it
Was either player playing with an injury
Were any games blowouts
The permutations are almost infinite.
Even if Donald had been out for 8 weeks and we'd seen his replacement we'd be barely in a better position to judge, but we don't even have that luxury.
It is literally impossible to have anything remotely resembling accurate and correlation is not the same as causation.
I'm on the fence with what we do with AD, but when people try to support an argument with something as lame as WAR, that's a stat designed just to keep people looking for stats happy, then that doesn't sway me one way or another.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
