One last thing about Darnell Dockett as his retirement settles in: Dockett talked about walking a thin line, but never really crossing it. "That's just my personality," he told Bertrand Berry on Berry's radio show. "I was determined to create funny and hilarious moments my entire career."

That's something to keep in mind when people think back to much of the stirring up he did on social media. Yes, he showed himself taking a shower on UStream to win a wager. But all those other things? The day he tweeted while at jury duty, that didn't really happen. Much to PETA's chagrin, those times when he suggested he was going to get/he got a pet alligator or pet tiger? Even his traffic stops he tweeted about? Think very carefully about the source -- Dock often just wanted to create a "moment."

"In my next 20 years it's going to be the same thing, it'll just be more exciting because I don't have rules," Dockett said. "I won't let people down, I won't have to go talk to (VP of media relations) Mark Dalton every Monday morning before practice.

"You're talking about a guy who walked a thin line but never got in trouble. I never got arrested, I never got suspended for games, besides the Whisenhunt thing, but that don't count though. I don't count that as a suspension. That was just somebody getting mad."

("The Whisenhunt thing" was the benching in Seattle following a sideline confrontation with then-teammate Kerry Rhodes. Whisenhunt was definitely mad after that one.)

"That's what people fail to realize," Dockett said. "People say Darnell la-la-la, but I never got in trouble. Never been on the news for anything bad, always Darnell is living his damn life -- through an NFL career where they want you to be caged."

That's why, when Adrian Wilson said "There are heroes, there are villains, and there's Dockett," everyone who had been around Darnell just nodded in agreement. It was an apt description.