DOCKETT WANTS PLAY TO BE BIGGER THAN HIS TWEETS
Questioning Darnell Dockett is dangerous. The Cardinals’ defensive end could sic his pet tiger on you or turn his Twitter account into a high-powered assault weapon.
Ask Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron what it’s like to be on the wrong side of Dockett’s 140-character rants. When McCarron objected to Dockett inviting McCarron’s girlfriend, Katherine Webb, to lunch
and a strip club, Dockett responded by calling McCarron a “sissy boy.”
Imagine the colorful insults he’d come up with for a sportswriter.
Still, duty calls. So at the risk of being mauled by the tiger or Dockett and his 153,000-plus Twitter followers, a question: What if Dockett’s substandard 2012 season wasn’t the result of being handcuffed by the scheme of former defensive coordinator Ray Horton?
What if, at the age of 32, he’s just getting old?
“As far as being able to go out and do things that young cats do, the film don’t lie,” Dockett said. “I do things better than the young cats do.”
That wasn’t the case last season. Dockett had 34 tackles and 1.5 sacks, his lowest totals since his second year in the league. More alarming: His sack total has decreased each of the past three seasons after he collected seven in 2009.
For a player on the wrong side of 30, that’s a red flag. But ask Dockett about the wear and tear on his body or whether he again can be a dominant player, and his pride fights back with a torrent of words.
“It’s you guys (the media) that try to put out what you think can or can’t happen. Me, I’m always going to believe in myself,” Dockett said. … “Everybody in this locker room knows me and knows what I bring to the game. They won’t be surprised. You all will be surprised writing all the stories and (expletive). I don’t pay that (expletive) no attention.
“Guys in the locker room, we really don’t care about your opinions or what you write good or bad. You all hate us one minute and love us the next. I know how all this (expletive) goes. At the end of the day, you all will be more surprised at what I do than the guys I go to work with every day.”
For Dockett, the drop-off in his numbers has a simple explanation: Horton’s 3-4 scheme didn’t suit his skill set.
There’s some validity to that argument. What made Dockett a special player is his explosiveness, but in Horton’s two-gap system he was asked to read the play and neutralize an offensive lineman, thus freeing up Arizona’s linebackers. Essentially, the Cardinals turned a Porsche into a Ford truck.
“Anytime you play a 3-4 and they ask you to two-gap 90 percent of the game, what do you expect?” Dockett said. “Look at every 3-4 end they ask to do that. They don’t ever have good numbers.”
That’s not entirely true. Fellow defensive end Calais Campbell prospered in Horton’s system, with 72 tackles and eight sacks in 2011 and 63 tackles and 6.5 sacks in 2012. Whenever Dockett balked at his role, Horton would point to Campbell as proof a defensive end could put up big numbers.
Dockett’s assertion, however, is backed up by coach Bruce Arians.
He noted that defensive ends for the Pittsburgh Steelers — who play the same 3-4 defense Horton employed — rarely collect big sack numbers.
“Everything is built around those outside backers,” Arians said.
If it was the system, Dockett should prosper this season. Under new defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, he’s back to playing a one-gap scheme. He can attack rather than be worried about his gap assignment.
“There’ll be opportunity for defensive linemen to take over a game and do what we’ve been doing all our careers,” he said. “Make plays. Be disruptive. … I just like this defense better.”
Maybe Dockett is right. Maybe, freed to play the way he wants, he’ll again be the player he once was.
“I don’t see on the practice field any slowness in his step,” Arians said. “If anything, there is a little pep in his step. I’m extremely confident he’ll have a good year.”
If he does, we’ll know it was the scheme and not the player. But at the age of 32, with all those miles on Dockett’s body, is that a certainty?