Tom Pelissero on Aaron Donald, Mayfield Extension, QB Competitions & More

Nobody has shut the door on Aaron Donald. That was the headline Tom Pelissero brought to Rich as the calendar crept toward training camp, and it is the storyline the NFL insider says he will be watching most closely.

Donald has not played football in two full seasons. Pelissero was careful to knock down the idea that the Rams are chasing him. They are not calling, not recruiting, not trying to talk him into a comeback. But the situation is more open than the silence suggests. If Donald tests his body, trains, and decides he genuinely wants to play again, not just to build the biggest biceps anyone has ever seen but to compete, then a phone call to Sean McVay and Les Snead could set things in motion.

Pelissero painted the picture of what that would look like. Not seventy snaps a game. Maybe thirty, focused on pass-rush downs. And then he asked the rest of the league to imagine blocking Donald alongside Myles Garrett, Kobe Turner, and Byron Young on a team built to score thirty a game. Even as a long shot, Pelissero said, it is telling that no one has closed the door.

The most important contract on his radar belongs to Baker Mayfield. Among franchise quarterbacks, Pelissero noted, Mayfield sits at the bottom of the veteran pay scale, and he is a free agent after this season. Tampa Bay could let "salty, angry Baker" go win games and sort it out later, the way they have handled other veterans, but the quarterback position tends to demand different treatment. Pelissero expects the two sides to reconvene right before camp.

He also flagged the running back market, with Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs both in line for big deals their teams appear motivated to finish.

The part Pelissero clearly enjoys most is the quarterback competitions, because those actually play out on the field. He knocked down the notion that Cleveland is shopping Shedeur Sanders, saying he has not heard that at all and expects a real battle between Sanders and Deshaun Watson, with both quarterbacks likely on the roster. Sanders, he added, has made real leaps. In Atlanta, he is eager to see a fully healthy Michael Penix Jr. go up against Tua. And in Minnesota, the J.J. McCarthy and Kyler Murray reps have been split fifty-fifty through the spring. If forced to guess, Pelissero said the arrows point toward Murray, but the team wants to see them compete, possibly into the preseason.

The interview closed on a lighter note. Rich pulled up a shot of McVay showing off his abs on Instagram and joked it might be the coach sending the bat signal to Donald. Pelissero laughed and said his only reaction to the photo was, "Knock it off, Sean. We get it." Then he dropped one more detail that landed like a tell. Donald, he mentioned, posted a new workout video the day before.