9:20pm: It is indeed a season-ending ACL tear for Dockett, writes Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. Dockett did not, contrary to some reports, tear his MCL, which will at least make his rehab for the 2015 season a bit easier.
7:41pm: Earlier tonight, Cardinals defensive tackle Darnell Dockett was carted off of the field with an apparent right knee injury. Unfortunately, it looks like Dockett’s MRI yielded some bad news. The Cards believe that the defensive tackle has a torn ACL, sources tell Mike Garafolo of FOX Sports 1 (on Twitter).
It goes without saying that losing Dockett for the year would be a major blow to the Cardinals defense. Dockett, 33, has spent his entire career with Arizona and has missed just one game in the last ten seasons. Dockett is coming off of a season in which he registered 4.5 sacks and 36 tackles as a part of a career in which he has tallied 40.5 sacks and 349 tackles.
Dockett is slated to count $8.75MM against the cap in 2014 and is scheduled to count $9.8MM against the cap in 2015. Even before today’s unfortunate development, it seemed likely that the Cards would ask Dockett to take a pay cut or release him before the start of the ’15 campaign.