AD is ready for rematch with Saints: ‘We expect a dogfight’...

By: Cameron DaSilva

[theramswire.usatoday.com]

With four meetings in the last three seasons, the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints have grown to become bitter rivals. It doesn’t help that the Rams knocked the Saints out of the playoffs due to a controversial no-call in the NFC championship game last postseason, adding to the fierce competition between the two teams.
They’ve split the last four meetings, with the Rams winning the most important one in January. And on Sunday, they’ll meet again, this time at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Aaron Donald has grown accustomed to facing the Saints and he knows exactly what to expect from Sean McVay’s squad: “A dog fight.”
Donald is excited about taking on the defending NFC South champions this weekend and knows it’s bound to be a close game.

“We’ve been playing them every season. We know what type of game it’s going to be. It’s usually a physical game. It’s a game with a lot of back-and-forth – usually a good game, a close game. That’s what we expect, we expect a dog fight,” Donald told Rams Wire in an interview on behalf of Pizza Hut. “We’re excited about playing a good team like that. We kind of know what to expect from teams that we saw last year. We played them twice and they gave us different looks and tried to find ways to slow us down and do certain things. But that’s what we’ve got great coaches for, to watch that and for us as a team, put that together and go out there and execute it.”

The Saints did a good job keeping Donald in check last season, holding him to zero sacks in both games. As he always does, he impacted the game in other ways.
He hit Drew Brees three times in the NFC championship game and another four times in Week 9, despite never bringing him down for a sack. He generated pressure consistently in both games and also had three combined tackles for loss.
Brees gets the ball out of his hands so quickly that it’s difficult for even the best pass rushers to sack him. It’s exactly why he was taken down just 17 times last season and once against the Texans on Monday night.
Donald will have to be on top of his game in Week 2 because he knows more double teams are coming.
“It’s expected,” he said.