FSU football: 15 greatest NFL careers ever by former Seminoles
By Joey Loose
FSU football greatest NFL career No.13: Darnell Dockett
One of college football’s best defensive linemen back in the early 2000s, Darnell Dockett was a big piece of Florida State’s defense and was actually ACC Defensive Player of the Year in 2003. Unsurprisingly, he was drafted in 2004, waiting until the early third round and heading to Arizona.
Dockett would spend his entire NFL career with the Cardinals, the team that drafted him, and he’d make a certain impact up front. He was a starter on that defensive line from the very beginning and would play all but two games for the Cardinals across the next decade.
It’s hard to easily demonstrate Dockett’s importance, but he made three trips to the Pro Bowl in the middle of his career, representing the Cardinals in 2007, 2009, and 2010. He had a pair of fumble return touchdowns in his career and was also Second Team All-Pro in 2009, a season where he had 18 tackles for a loss.
Dockett played in Super Bowl XLIII and was incredible with three sacks, though the Cardinals would fall late to the Pittsburgh Steelers. It was by far the finest performance of his career.
He’d play several more seasons before leaving the game at the end of the 2013 season, starting nearly every game for Arizona in the process. For his career, Dockett accumulated 40.5 career sacks, while also forcing 13 turnovers in the regular season as well. A monstrous defensive lineman, he still stands out as one of Arizona’s finest defensive players since the turn of the century.