It's not often you see an NFL player swing a helmet at an opponent, but that's exactly what happened last week when Aaron Donald was in Cincinnati. The incident went down Aug. 25, and nearly one week later, the Rams star was finally asked about the situation and he went full Allen Iverson.
During an interview on CBS Sports Radio, Donald seemed to insinuate that the helmet swing wasn't a big deal because it didn't happen during a game.
"It was just a practice," Donald said on The Zach Gelb Show. "Obviously, people got phones out and things like that, but I'm not going to sit and talk about negative stuff that happened at a practice. My main focus is Buffalo."
As Iverson once famously said, "We talking about practice. Not a game."
Although a player can get punished for swinging a helmet at someone in a game -- Myles Garrett got suspended six games for that exact situation -- Donald likely won't be facing any punishment because the incident happened in a practice. The NFL always defers to the team for punishment whenever there's an issue at practice, which means any punishment would have to come from the Rams.
Rams coach Sean McVay was asked Aug. 27 if there would be a punishment for Donald and he gave a vague answer.
"We've handled it internally and we'll keep that in house," McVay said during the Rams' 16-7 loss to the Bengals.
Donald was asked by Gelb if there ended up being any sort of internal punishment, and from the sound of it, the answer is no.
"We talked," Donald said. "We talked."
The helmet swing happened during a Rams-Bengals joint practice last week. Near the end of the practice, a wild brawl started after a Rams defender grabbed Bengals offensive lineman La'el Collins from behind, according to ESPN. At some point a short time later, Collins managed to grab Leonard Floyd's helmet and throw it at him and then all hell broke loose from there.
At some point during the chaos, Donald grabbed not one, but two helmets, and started swinging them. Not only was Donald taking swings, but he actually made a connection.
Aaron Donald out here ripping a Bengals player’s helmet off and playing Whac-A-Mole with it 😟 pic.twitter.com/Yiu53YpbZq
— NFL Memes (@NFL_Memes) August 25, 2022
In the video above, you can clearly see (and hear) him hitting someone over the head with a helmet. The person he hit was wearing a helmet, so no one got injured.
Considering how hard he came down with his swing, Donald was fortunate no one suffered any serious injuries.
In this photo from yesterday's brawl, you can see how much the Bengals helmet flexes on impact 😳 (photo via Sam Greene/The Enquirer) https://t.co/T4PLDraGLf pic.twitter.com/DFWpKrtpi6
— Cameron DaSilva (@camdasilva) August 26, 2022
Despite showing a total disregard for player safety, Donald appears to have avoided any serious punishment, which means he'll be on the field when the NFL season kicks off next Thursday in Los Angeles when the Rams host the Bills.
