GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Ask Charles Woodson a simple question -- Why are you still playing? -- and you get a simple answer.
The Oakland Raiders' 39-year-old safety isn’t doing it to prove the Green Bay Packers were wrong to let him go in 2013 -- although he hasn’t forgotten how he felt when the team cut him that February.
He isn’t doing it to pay it forward in the game that’s given him so much -- although he is enjoying his lead-by-example role in the young and improving Raiders’ rebuilding project.
Charles Woodson finished with 38 interceptions in seven seasons with the Packers, starting all 100 games he played. Jamie Squire/Getty Images
And he is not doing it for the money (he’s on a modest one-year, $1.8 million deal) or because of a lack of outside interests (he has his own winery, TwentyFour Wines, and is an active fundraiser for the University of Michigan’s C.S Mott Children’s Hospital) or in hopes of being a modern-day George Blanda.
“You know what? Because -- I've thought about this a lot -- it’s hard to walk away from, to put it simply,” Woodson replied in a telephone interview from his San Francisco Bay Area home on Monday evening, in advance of Sunday’s game against the Packers at O.co Coliseum. “Have I done everything? Yeah, I have. But at the same time, you feel like there's more you can do. And, what else are you going to do? There'll be some opportunities for other things post-playing, but it's like, ‘Man, I don't want to give this gig up.’
“To me, this is the best thing in the world to be doing. Regardless of age or what I've done and accomplished, I still have a great deal of fun.”
On Sunday, he will try to accomplish something he has never done outside of practice: intercept Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, his close friend and former teammate. After 18 years with no interceptions of Denver’s Peyton Manning, Woodson picked off his runner-up for the 1997 Heisman Trophy -- twice -- during the Raiders’ Oct. 11 loss to the Broncos. But this will mark the first time Woodson will face Rodgers in a game that counts after spending seven seasons from 2006 through 2012 together in Green Bay.
“I'll say the same thing I said during Peyton week: It was great to get Peyton, but I don’t want to make [intercepting] ‘A-Rod’ bigger than what it'll actually mean for the game,” said Woodson, who did have a potential interception slip through his fingers in a 2014 preseason game against Rodgers. “But to get one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game? Of course. Who doesn't want that action?"
Even at this stage of his career, Woodson is definitely a man of action. He enters Sunday tied for third in the NFL in interceptions (five). And after dislocating his shoulder in the regular-season opener and aggravating the injury in early November, he hasn’t missed a start. Considering durability was a factor in the Packers’ decision to release him -- Woodson broke his left collarbone in Super Bowl XLV and the right one during the 2012 season -- his ability to defy age has been a point of pride for him.
“Father Time is definitely undefeated, that's for sure,” Woodson said. “But does it feel good to have some people eat their words about what they said about me as a player? Yeah, that's fun.”
Packers coach Mike McCarthy wouldn’t say on Monday that the Packers made a mistake in cutting Woodson, but he called Woodson “a generational player” and acknowledged it was “a privilege” to have coached him. McCarthy also spoke with reverence about the way Woodson progressed from being a pure shutdown corner to a defensive Swiss Army knife -- with his ability at the line of scrimmage to blitz, tackle and stop the run -- to an effective free safety in the twilight of his career.
In his first tour of duty in Oakland, Woodson earned four Pro Bowl berths, intercepted 17 passes, forced 14 fumbles, had 5.5 sacks and scored two defensive touchdowns. In seven seasons in Green Bay, Woodson was also selected to four Pro Bowls, but his other numbers exploded to the tune of 38 interceptions, 11.5 sacks and 10 touchdowns. He started all 100 games he played for the Packers, earned the NFL Defensive Player of the Year from the Associated Press in 2009 and set the franchise record for most defensive touchdowns.
“We definitely enjoyed our time here with him, [and] I'm not surprised that he's still rolling the way he's rolling,” McCarthy said. “Those [personnel] decisions are never easy. It's never clear-cut. But he's gone on and done very well. Hell, I don't know when he's going to stop playing. I mean, he looks pretty good.”
"To me, he's the most complete corner that's ever played the game," Packers cornerbacks coach Joe Whitt said of Charles Woodson, now a safety with the Raiders. AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
That’s also how Woodson looks to his former position coach, Packers cornerbacks coach Joe Whitt. The two talk every week, and in addition to his film work on upcoming opponents’ offenses, Whitt also watches film of Woodson to keep tabs on his friend. And Whitt likes what he sees.
“I mean, a guy that can [still] cover the way he can cover, can rush the passer, can tackle, can cause fumbles, can sack the quarterback -- there’s nothing he can’t do,” said Whitt, who still uses a compilation of Woodson’s best plays in Green Bay as his annual offseason instructional video for current players. “He left the hospital with that; God gave him a lot of ability. Our quarterback is that [same] way. There’s a couple men walking around that are just different than everybody else, and he’s one of them.
“To me, he’s the most complete corner that’s ever played the game.”
On Thanksgiving, Woodson watched on TV as ex-Packers quarterback Brett Favre, his teammate in 2006 and 2007, had his retired No. 4 unveiled on the Lambeau Field façade. While Woodson’s departure wasn’t as acrimonious as Favre’s, it did bother Woodson that the Packers didn’t even discuss the idea of taking a pay cut to stay -- something he said he would have done.
“It definitely stung, because I did anticipate finishing my career there. So when you get the call and it's officially over, yeah, that definitely hurts,” Woodson said. “Every player, when you get released, you feel like you still have a lot to offer. And that team is telling you, ‘No, you don't have a lot to offer, so we're moving on.’
"For me, I needed to get to another team, I needed to play more football, I needed to be out on the field, I needed to be in somebody else's building going to meetings and practices and playing in games, doing what it is I do every week in order to get over it. And that’s playing football. You need the game to actually get over it.”
And so he wound up back in Oakland, where he spent his first eight NFL seasons, and where he hasn’t ruled out returning in 2016.
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