Most players in this not-for-long league are long gone by the time they reach 39. Not Arizona Cardinals’ defensive end Calais Campbell. He’s still out there giving his all on the field every Sunday. And he believes it has earned him a choice at the end of the season.

“I think I did well enough this year that I will have a choice. That’s a good feeling,” said the DE.

“The last few years I’ve been through this process I’ve known pretty quickly that I’ve wanted to play again,” Campbell said. “It didn’t take me that long — within a month or so, I knew I wanted to play football again. We’ll see. I hope to know quickly if I don’t want to play football again.”

As the Arizona Cardinals close out their season Sunday in Los Angeles, Campbell will also be closing the book on his 18th NFL season. At least, that’s what everyone assumed back in September. It felt convincing then. Logical, even. But after the year he’s had, that certainty is gone, for him and for everyone watching.

Campbell was drafted by the Cardinals in the second round back in 2008, and Sunday will mark his 278th regular-season game. That puts him within striking distance of history. The NFL record for a defensive lineman belongs to Jim Marshall, who played 282 games for the Minnesota Vikings from 1961 to 1979.

Most importantly, he’s been genuinely productive. Campbell has been one of Arizona’s most reliable players this season, finishing with 41 tackles and two blocked kicks. His 117 career sacks rank fourth among active players and 25th all-time. These are not the numbers of a 39-year-old.

The Cardinals are fortunate he decided to come back this summer. After posting 52 tackles with the Miami Dolphins last season, Campbell signed a one-year, $5.5 million deal to return to Arizona. At the time, it felt like a farewell tour. Now, after the way he’s played, his retirement talk feels less settled than ever.

There’s something fitting about that. Campbell started his career in Arizona, and it’s hard not to think he wants to finish it there, too. Even he thought this would be it when the year began.

“I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t (my last year),” he said earlier this season.

That sounded definitive then. It doesn’t now. And that Jim Marshal record is not the only goal he’s chasing to end the season.

Calais Campbell has one more thing to achieve

The season is pretty much over. But the Cardinals’ defensive end has a chance to make some serious bank in the last game of the season. He has already vested a $500,000 bonus with 6.5 sacks so far this season. But one more sack doubles that to $1M. That’s solid money for someone who’s only making $5.5M this year.

There’s still a long, long way to go if he wants to be the sack leader of this team. Josh Sweat is sitting up there with 11 sacks, but that probably doesn’t matter for Campbell right now. He’s already exceeded the production that was expected out of him at the start of the season, and he wants to finish the year on a high note.

And while he might have a choice to make, we still don’t know if this is his last season or not. And if it is, what a ride it has been. Seventeen seasons of real work. Double-digit games played year after year. A place on the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s 2010s All-Decade Team. The 2019 Walter Payton Man of the Year award.

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It doesn’t sound like Campbell will sit on the decision for long. And if he does decide there’s one more run left, one thing feels pretty certain. It won’t be anywhere new. If Calais Campbell lines up again in 2026, it will be right where it started, with Arizona.