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Darnell Dockett will be 34 years old next season and is coming off a torn ACL which caused him to miss the entire 2014 NFL season. That's not why the Arizona Cardinals cut him, though. He was due to have a cap number of 9.8 million dollars. Cutting him saved $6.8M, and there's a pretty good chance they'll try to re-sign him. Arizona's GM Steve Keim has already stated publicly that they'd like to have him back.
The veteran defensive tackle is a 3-time Pro Bowler and one of the most game-changing interior defensive linemen in football. If he comes back healthy, he could be the best player on the Chargers defensive line. According to his Twitter account (which would become a must-follow if he signs in San Diego), he plans to come back strong:
No matter the logo Im gonna win that comeback player of the year....
— DARNELL DOCKETT (@ddockett) February 23, 2015
That said, there's reason to believe that Dockett might fail to come back completely healthy at his age, and he's not going to be signing for the veteran minimum or onto some one-year-prove-it contract. He's going to get paid a decent amount of money and he's going to command multiple years. There's risk there. That said, Dockett is a potentially great player and that kind of upside would be stupid to ignore. Tom Telesco needs to at least kick the tires here. Fingers crossed, Chargers fans.