STEELERS WOODSON COACHING AT BENGALS MINICAMP

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Woodson comes down from Canton
By GEOFF HOBSON

Posted 9 hours ago

aaIt wasn’t like he was wearing No. 26 in stripes, but seeing Pro Football Hall of Famer Rod Woodson on the field Tuesday morning wearing a Bengals ball cap and T-Shirt would have thrilled any fan of Who Dey nation of a certain age.

It certainly did the defensive backs he is helping coach this week in the Bengals’ mandatory minicamp and in the early stages of the training camp that starts in six weeks. At 45 and fresh off last year’s first-ballot election to Canton, the 5-11, 205-pound Woodson still looks like he could play on passing downs. When asked if he had his 19th defensive back on an already teeming depth chart, defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer said, “He’s a pretty good one.”

How good? In 15 seasons as a Pro Bowl cornerback and later as a Pro Bowl safety he had 71 interceptions, the third most of all-time.

“I hope I can get him in that film room and try to get some of his tactics,” said cornerback Adam Jones after his first practice with Woodson. “Hopefully that will make me a better player. Just getting him in there (the film room) so he can tell me some of his secrets or tendencies when he watches film. He’s got so many interceptions he must have watched film to get those interceptions. He’s one of the best of all time. It’s always good to get in there and try to pick somebody’s brain. You can’t do nothing but get better.”

It may have seemed like Woodson played forever, but none of these 18 DBs were playing in the NFL when Woodson retired from the Raiders in 2003. Cornerback Johnathan Joseph knows him as a NFL Network analyst as well as an all-time great and he came away impressed with his first meeting with him Tuesday.

“He’s smart. You can tell just from talking to him, seeing different things that you don’t know that you thought you knew,” Joseph said.

They got into it pretty deep Tuesday as they talked about the need for giving quarterbacks different looks.

“Because the quarterbacks in the league are so good, if you show the same thing all the time, they’re going to pick you apart.”

Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis has always raved about Woodson, everything from his brains to his athleticism, to his toughness. He first worked with him in Pittsburgh in the mid 1990s when Lewis was the linebackers coach and Woodson was a perennial Pro Bowl cornerback. He then lured him to Baltimore when he was the defensive coordinator for the Ravens and made him a safety on the stingiest defense of all time for the 2000 Super Bowl champs.