Aaron Donald was the only Rams player ruled out for the Week 1 injury report, and Sean McVay made that call before the team left Los Angeles for Melbourne. That left Donald out of the 2026 regular season opener against the 49ers at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The timing matters because the game was set for 5:35 p.m. Pacific time Thursday, which is 10:35 a.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time Friday, and it was scheduled for Netflix. For readers checking on Aaron Donald retired, the answer for this game was simple: he was not available, and he was the only Rams player carried on the final report with that status.
McVay said Myles Garrett would be “ready to go,” while Nick Bosa and George Kittle carried no designations. Alfred Collins was ruled out and James Thompson was listed as questionable, which put Donald’s absence in a wider injury report that still left the Rams with only one player formally sidelined. Donald’s status was not a surprise, but it was still the clearest availability decision the Rams had to make before the opener.
The report also sharpened the one question that mattered most for the Rams: how much they would have to manage without Donald in a game that opened their season on the other side of the world. The next answer comes on the field, where the Rams and 49ers were set to meet Friday morning in Melbourne.
