At one point during a recent conversation among teammates, someone referred to new/old Cardinals veteran Calais Campbell as "Mr. 110."
The nickname struck Darius Robinson odd in the immediate moment. He remembered that safety Budda Baker had reached his 100th NFL start last year, but Campbell, being much older than Baker, had to be well past 110 starts.
Then it hit Robinson – the 110 was the number of sacks Campbell had piled up in his career.
"I've only got one sack," Robinson said with a laugh on Wednesday while meeting with the media. "So I said, 'Yeah, I've got a lot of work to do.'"
Campbell is among a handful of defensive line additions the Cardinals made in the offseason, including first-round pick Walter Nolen III. But it can be argued that none could influence the season more than Robinson, the 2024 first-round pick who had his rookie season shattered by a calf injury.
Yes, Robinson returned to play six games at the end of the season after suffering his calf injury in August. Robinson looked like a steal of a first-round pick before his injury; he acknowledged it wasn't the same when he returned, and that he was constantly thinking about those six games when he was only showing "bits and pieces" of what he could be.
"I felt like in training camp, the tape was hot," Robinson said. "Coming back, it was cool. We're in Phoenix. I have to find a way to get it hot again."
Jonathan Gannon is the last guy to proclaim so plainly that a player wasn't hitting his peak during play. For all players, the coach said, they enter a new season trying to improve on the last.
"(Darius) has worked extremely hard this offseason, he looks good, he's ready to go," Gannon said. "He wants to get on the grass and play football. That's all of our guys. You are never a finished product. You're either getting better or getting worse – whatever that means, kind of a cliché, but it's probably true."