Is Rod Woodson Working With Steelers Again
Woodson earned his spot amid elite
The credentials for Canton are unquestioned.
Whether information technology was his 71 career interceptions off 42 quarterbacks or winning a Super Bowl band, erstwhile Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Rod Woodson accomplished just about everything possible on a football field.
Woodson recorded more than ane,000 tackles from the secondary, his interception total is tertiary all time, and he holds the NFL record for most interceptions returned for a touchdown (12) and full interception return yards (1,483).
Just is Woodson the greatest cornerback ever?
"There has never been a more complete football game histrion -- non as a cornerback, a defensive tackle, a receiver, quarterback, whatsoever," longtime Steelers defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau said emphatically. "He could exercise information technology all."
Settling the cornerback argue is difficult and would require an in-depth look at many dissimilar eras.
Just merely being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Sabbatum as function of the class of 2009 puts Woodson in rare company. In that location are but 20 defensive backs enshrined in Canton and only 11, including Woodson, were cornerbacks for a majority of their careers.
The illustrious cornerback listing includes Herb Adderley, Lem Barney, Mel Blount, Willie Dark-brown, Darrell Green, Mike Haynes, Jimmy Johnson, Dick "Dark Train" Lane, Emmitt Thomas and Roger Wehrli. Deion Sanders -- a surefire Hall of Famer who is not eligible until 2010 -- should be included on this list, as well.
ESPN.com recently asked three NFL experts -- Cincinnati Bengals coach Marvin Lewis, Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon and former eight-time Pro Bowl receiver Cris Carter -- to provide their lists of the top five best corners. All three had Woodson amongst the very elite.
Woodson spent near of his career with the Steelers. Merely Lewis coached Woodson during their 2000 championship run with the Baltimore Ravens, a team that featured ane of the nearly ascendant defenses ever.
In no particular gild, the Bengals double-decker has Woodson in his top 5, forth with Blount, Sanders, Brown and Green.
"I don't know if you could ask for a better thespian with both physical talent and mental ability," Lewis said of Woodson. "He was great in every manner. He's a guy who was a great teammate, a great player, and he wanted to be at the indicate of assault. He wanted the responsibility of being the guy in the centre of the fire all the time, and he accepted that."
Carter played confronting Woodson in both the NFL and in college, as Big Ten rivals at Ohio State and Purdue, respectively.
Carter believes Woodson is the greatest cornerback of all time, merely with one qualifier: Woodson has to share that championship with Sanders.
"I would get 1A and 1B on those two," Carter said. "Speed wasn't a trouble for Woodson. Size wasn't a problem. What era couldn't he have played in? He was a phenomenal athlete."
Moon, who was picked off three times past Woodson during his career, rated Woodson 3rd behind Haynes and Sanders.
Moon faced Woodson many times during the heated AFC Central rivalry between the Houston Oilers and Pittsburgh, and the former quarterback marveled at Woodson's physicality from the cornerback position.
An underrated stat for Woodson is that he also recorded thirteen.v career sacks, all of which came while playing in the Steelers' aggressive "Blitzburgh" defense force.
"He was a smashing tackler and a great hitter," Moon said. "He gave me my last concussion back in 1991 or then. There's near twenty minutes of that Pittsburgh game that I still don't remember, considering he hit me coming off a nickel blitz and collection me to the turf."
Hall of Fame tight end and and Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome deemed Woodson "the all-time cornerback of the '90s," which happens to be a decade Woodson shared with Sanders.
"Rod was a great athlete with speed and quickness," Newsome said. "If he didn't come to the NFL, he would have been on our Olympic team every bit a hurdler or sprinter. He played the game like a double-decker. He understood how offenses wanted to attack."
Rod vs. Deion
It'south much easier to compare players of the same era, and Sanders and Woodson will forever be linked as the height cornerbacks of the past 20 years. Yet their playing styles were as different as their personalities.
• Woodson dominated the AFC for most of his 17-year career (he played for the San Francisco 49ers in 1997). Sanders spent all but ii of his 14 seasons as a shutdown corner in the NFC.
• Sanders was brash and attention-grabbing. Woodson went virtually his business quietly.
• Woodson was an aggressive tackler who loved to make a big hit. Sanders, meanwhile, kept his focus on coverage and often treated tackling like a chore.
"Deion and I are similar in some aspects, but we're a lot different," Woodson said. "We all know that Deion was flashier than I was. I recall he was faster than I was. He was probably a ameliorate shutdown corner than I was.
"I consider myself an accommodating DB. If I demand to play corner, I'll become play corner. If I need to play rubber, I'll go play safety. Whatever I had to exercise."
Moon agreed that Woodson's versatility was i of the biggest differences between Woodson and Sanders.
"Rod could merely play so many positions," Moon said. "Deion, yous knew where he was going to exist all the time. He was out there on the corner and never came in the slot very much and definitely didn't play safety or anything like that. Rod was all over the secondary, anywhere they needed him."
Woodson and Sanders did have some similarities. For case, both were great returners on special teams, and in one case the football was in their hands, they knew what to do with it.
In what is becoming a lost fine art for defensive players in the NFL -- Baltimore safety Ed Reed being 1 of today'due south few exceptions -- Sanders (xix) and Woodson (17) combined for 36 career touchdowns returning kicks, interceptions and fumbles.
"Against both, you lot had to actually, really be thinking," Carter said. "And neither one of them y'all could just run by them."
Co-ordinate to Woodson, perhaps his biggest similarity with Sanders was his competitiveness.
"We took pride in [thinking] whenever we stepped on the field, we were better than anyone else that was in front of united states," Woodson said. "I think the similarities go beyond the board with all the great players in the league, not just the cornerback position, only every position."
Defining moment
One of Woodson's career-defining moments came in 1995.
In the regular-season opener, an attempted tackle on fellow Hall of Famer Barry Sanders -- i of the well-nigh elusive runners always -- went amiss and Woodson tore his ACL.
Many believe Sanders' juke shredded Woodson's knee. Woodson prefers to say information technology was the turf that came upwardly and bit him.
"Information technology was the start game of the yr and [the turf] was extremely hot," Woodson said. "Barry fabricated a cutting within and when I planted, my human foot stayed direct and my knee turned. So if people desire to say it was Barry, they can say it was Barry. I'd like to say it was the turf.
"Simply did information technology touch on the rest of my career? In some capacity information technology did. But my fate was my fate and my journey was my journeying no matter what."
Whether it was Sanders, the turf or a combination of the two, the injury led to 1 of Woodson'southward defining moments and an eventual move to safe later in his career.
Quondam Steelers coach Bill Cowher left a roster spot open so Woodson could return. And through hard work and rehab, Woodson became the first actor in NFL history to make it back from reconstructive knee surgery in the same flavor when he participated in Pittsburgh's 27-17 loss to the Dallas Cowboys in Super Basin 30.
Non only that, Woodson was a productive player on the large stage that night.
"That was i of my dandy memories in football," LeBeau said. "Rod had never been in the Super Bowl, and who knows at that time whether he would e'er get there once more.
"It turns out he has a title band. Just for all we knew, that was going to be his shot at the Super Basin, and it was simply a dandy story to see him work and rehab and for Coach Nib to keep a spot open for him."
Woodson wound up playing eight more years, the final five at rubber. During his final Pro Bowl season in 2002, Woodson was an amazing 37 years former and recorded eight interceptions, including 2 returned for touchdowns, with the Oakland Raiders.
"He takes very good care of himself; he even so does," said quondam NFL player Brian Baldinger, who now works with Woodson, 44, as an NFL Network analyst. "He'southward not a partyer. Rod is but a really meticulous, disciplined guy, and that's almost rare. At the same time, he had incredible power -- almost like a Michael Jordan when you combine rare power with intense focus and subject area."
Lewis, the defensive coordinator in Baltimore, was the coach who moved Woodson to safety in 1999. Lewis also had the unenviable job of breaking the news to Woodson.
"I tin can remember calling him on the telephone during the draft," said Lewis. "I thought we had a skilful opportunity to typhoon a corner with the first pick when we drafted Chris McAlister. I said, 'Rod, we're probably going to spend this pick on a cornerback, and we'd like you to motility to prophylactic. Are y'all ready to exercise that?'
"Of form, Woodson said, 'Practise you think he'due south improve than me?'"
Lewis was quick on his feet and handled the situation well. The coach responded by saying the motion would make for a meliorate squad and a better defense force, and he was right.
Woodson was a natural fit at rubber, recording 11 interceptions his next two seasons, which culminated with the Ravens winning their lone Super Basin in 2000 behind a tape-setting defense.
"He was instrumental in developing the high level of professionalism we see from [linebacker] Ray Lewis," Newsome said. "He took young corners like Chris McAlister and Duane Starks, and said: 'This is the style to practice it.' We don't win Super Bowl XXXV without Rod."
End of a journey
In all, Woodson went to the Pro Bowl seven times as a cornerback and four times at safety. In add-on to Pittsburgh and Baltimore, Woodson spent 1 yr with the 49ers and two seasons ('02 and '03) with Oakland to circular out a tremendous 17-year career.
This weekend volition be the culmination of a football journey that began in Fort Wayne, Ind.
And only days before his crowning achievement, Woodson remains in disbelief that he is about to join the ranks of football game immortality as arguably the greatest cornerback to play the game.
"This is definitely an honor and a privilege to exist in the Pro Football Hall of Fame," Woodson said. "I've looked at my life and idea well-nigh how long pro football game has been going on for over 100 years. To be [ane of] but 200 or some odd guys in Pro Football Hall of Fame history to exist inducted I recollect is astonishing."
James Walker covers the NFL for ESPN.com.
Source: https://www.espn.com/nfl/news/story?id=4382642
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