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Opportunity was there, and to be honest, Calais Campbell was not surprised.

There were teams that had reached out to his agent with interest as March arrived, at least 10, including the Super Bowl participants Chiefs and Eagles. Finding a place to play was not the issue.

Finding a level of motivation was.

Not that the veteran defensive lineman didn't want to play. His love of football was still strong. Yet 17 years in the NFL grinds a man who was going to be 39 when the season arrived (and Campbell just had his birthday Monday, somewhat fittingly, on Labor Day as the Cardinals worked.)

In a scene captured by NFL Films, Campbell thought he was done midway through last season, telling his family at a postgame dinner – coincidentally, after a loss to the Cardinals when he was with the Dolphins – that "I'm probably going to retire." He left the field in his season finale against the Jets at New York taking everything in as if it was the last time.

Even as Campbell heard his agent rattle off the potential destinations for season No. 18, "I was really considering shutting it down."

He wanted to still be an impact player, and when Campbell thinks about it, he knows he would have been in Philly or Kansas City or wherever. But the Cardinals wanted him. They had tried to trade for him soon after that meeting in Miami last season. And there was a pull for Campbell, the idea of returning to the team with which he played the first nine years of his career, a franchise for which he had thought he'd like to play again for his storybook ending.

"Coming back here just made more sense," Campbell said. "A team on the cusp, in position to do some things, young talented guys who need help."

Campbell smiles when asked about being back in the building where he grew up as an NFL player. There are memories, yes. But "I feel my age. I reminisce sometimes how I used to feel. I wish I still felt that way."

That quest to be an impact player hasn't evaporated, however. There was a moment in a recent practice in which he made a play in the backfield, surprising coaches (most of whom are younger than Campbell, it should be noted.) It wasn't that they didn't think Campbell could make the play on a physical level, but that he even saw what he saw pre-snap to blow the play up – it was something most players would not notice.

"My recent history, I can still dominate with the way I feel, and that's what matters," Campbell said. "I still have the ability to take over and make plays. It just might not be every play like I want it to be.

"I tell these young guys, 'I wish you could've seen me.' But my mind is exceptional. And I still have enough athleticism to make the plays I need to make."

Bertrand Berry remembers that early version of Campbell. Berry was a veteran on the 2008 Super Bowl team which Campbell joined as a second-round draft pick, all 6-foot-8 and 272 pounds of him at the time.

He remembers a skinny, tall dude with uneven shoulders – strength and conditioning coach John Lott nicknamed Campbell "The Big Tilt" – who would deliver plenty of trash talk as a proud product of the University of Miami, toward Berry, a Notre Dame alum.

Berry remembers the athleticism, like in the Cardinals' dramatic overtime home win over the Cowboys that season. J.J. Arrington took back the opening kickoff for a touchdown, and the gigantic Campbell ran with Arrington stride-for-stride, lead-blocking all the way into the end zone.

"You knew there was a little something to him," said Berry, an edge rusher for those NFC Champions. "He was always excited and he gets to stuttering when he gets excited. He always had that spirit about him."

That team had veterans on which Campbell could lean. Darnell Dockett was in his prime, the guy who, yes, was unmerciful about teasing Campbell about his deep and gravelly voice, but against whom Campbell used as a measuring stick for work ethic. Antonio Smith was a big brother. Bryan Robinson, Chike Okeafor, Clark Haggans. Safety Adrian Wilson, who was less about the details of the defensive line but always asking Campbell what his plan was to become great.

Then there was Berry, whom Campbell said "was the first one to see my potential."

"He'd come up to me after practice, and I'd be thinking, practice is over, because I don't know anything, so it's 'What next?' You're following the herd," Campbell said. "And he was like, 'Nah. Come here.' We'd work after practice, helped me on my first step, my get-off."

By the time veteran defensive end Frostee Rucker joined the Cardinals in 2013, Campbell was a veteran himself, a lynchpin of the defense.

"There were so many memorable moments (with him) in the huddle," Rucker said. "You don't even have to say, 'Hey, make a play.' You could always count on him to be a factor."

Campbell was in his second contract by then. He had briefly thought about leaving – there was the lure of finding a team that would play him at end – but he wanted to be in Arizona. His whole family had moved to the state, and he had been dating Rocio, the woman who eventually became his wife.

Then Bruce Arians came in in 2013, and the decision was worth it. The Cardinals were playing as well as anyone by the end of the 2013 season, just missing the playoffs with a 10-win season. Injuries derailed a fantastic 2014 season, which ended with a first-round playoff loss. In 2015, the Cardinals got all the way to the NFC Championship game.

"That's what I want, to be an impact player on a team that makes a run," Campbell said. "My first year, I made plays, I played good football, but it was different because I was a rotational guy. By 2015, I was a main guy."

The Cardinals' defensive line in that era was laden with veterans like Rucker, Corey Peters, Cory Redding, and Dwight Freeney. Campbell was the leader, though. Rucker remembers Campbell's pregame ritual of listening to DMX "and sounding like him too."

Campbell suffered a core muscle injury in 2014, and even after surgery it lingered into early 2015. Looking back, Campbell thinks that was the beginning of the end of his first stint with the franchise. His athleticism was tempered.

To be fair, it is rare to see Darius Robinson without a smile on his face. The Cardinals second-year defensive lineman defaults to such a look.

But his eyes light up when asked about Campbell, his new teammate and mentor.

"He's probably the best teammate I've had my whole life and we've only been together a month or two," Robinson said.

It is Robinson and Dante Stills and, post-draft, Walter Nolen III that helped draw Campbell back to the desert.

"I really believe in this team," Campbell said. "I didn't want to just sign somewhere and not be able to make an impact. I wanted to be a guy who can affect things on the field, in the locker room, in the community.

"Darius, him just getting representation of what it can look like. Walter, I can see his fire, I can see his juice. I can't wait to mold him."

Campbell spent three seasons with the Jaguars, making the Pro Bowl all three seasons as a defensive end and finishing second to Aaron Donald as the 2017 Defensive Player of the Year (Campbell still feels he should've won.) Then came three solid seasons with the Ravens, and a season each with the Falcons and Dolphins.

He was a captain and graded well on Pro Football Focus in Year 17 last season in Miami. At one point, Brentson Buckner, who was Campbell's last defensive line coach in Arizona and who pushed Campbell along with Arians, found Campbell after he had moved on to Jacksonville. "I told the guys upstairs you couldn't do it anymore," Buckner told Campbell. "You've proved us all wrong."

"We thought he hit is prime then," Rucker said. "Sort of like LeBron (James) in a sense."