Aaron Donald makes Rams bigger Super Bowl favorites — but history isn’t in their favor

All eyes are on Aaron Donald and the Los Angeles Rams as one of the NFL’s best defensive players of all-time makes his return for the Super Bowl favorites.

A quick glance at the headlines suggests that Donald’s decision to end his retirement after two seasons off the field “boosted” the Rams’ odds to win the Super Bowl, but the reality is that possibility was already baked into the betting markets: Their shift from +550 to +500 at major sportsbooks like DraftKings represents around only a 1 percent difference in their implied probability to hoist the Lombardi Trophy from their home field at SoFi Stadium come February.

“[Donald] coming back was very much anticipated, so we definitely had priced it in already,” Borgata sportsbook director Thomas Gable told The Athletic.

The move does put the Rams in a new tier of preseason Super Bowl favorites — one in which history isn’t exactly on their side.

Per The Athletic’s Austin Mock, since 2002, none of the 14 Super Bowl preseason favorites listed at +500 odds or better heading into Week 1 have ended that season with a ring. In fact, three of those teams didn’t even make the playoffs, although that hasn’t happened since the New England Patriots missed the postseason as +350 preseason favorites in 2008, when Tom Brady suffered a season-ending knee injury during the season opener.

The Rams initially opened with the second-best odds (+900), right behind the Seattle Seahawks, in the hours immediately after Sam Darnold and Co. sealed the deal this past February. Those inched to +800 over the offseason before making a more notable jump to +600, about a 3 percent increase in implied probability, after the trade for Myles Garrett in early June — soon after which speculation about Donald teaming up with Garrett began.

Altogether, the powerhouse duo of defensive stars has had about a 5 percent impact on their implied probability of winning the franchise’s third title.