Off his ranch after a year out of football, big Al Woods readies for big Seahawks role
The Seahawks have entrepreneurs Russell Wilson — remember recovery water? — and Bobby Wagner.
They have a poet, Tyler Lockett.
Carlos Dunlap owns a restaurant, a chic brunch place in Miami. Alex Collins is a dancer, an Irish dancer, to be exact.
And they have two ranchers.
Wait...ranchers? In Seattle?
Large Al Woods owns a larger ranch outside Elton, Louisiana, between Lafayette and Lake Charles in the western part of his home state. He’s a third-generation rancher in his family.
“My house sits on, like, 40 acres,” the veteran defensive tackle said in his Southern drawl during Seahawks training camp. “So, I think the closest house to me is about a half a mile, each direction.”
Mention to Seahawks coach Pete Carroll that the 6-foot-3, 330-(plus)-pound Woods is a rancher, and the coach laughs.
“I think of him as a BIG farmer,” Carroll said.
Cody Barton is a not-as-big farmer. The 6-2, 237-pound linebacker said he got himself in what he describes as top physical shape to maintain his title as team leader in special-teams tackles by wrestling and branding cattle. Barton and the family also tends to thoroughbred horses, chickens and turkey. The third-year veteran and his brother Jackson, an offensive tackle for the New York Giants, do that on their family ranch in Duchesne, Utah, population of 1,800. The ranch is about 90 miles southeast of where the Bartons grew up, in Park City.
“Workin’ cows. Just workin’ cows,” Cody Barton said with a laugh. “Flankin’ calves...branding calves. Just having fun.”
He said he started branding with the family “B” a couple years ago. He said the thigh-high calves he’s rounding up in the early-summer heat of the Utah high desert by roping their heels are about 100 pounds each.
Asked if that’s his standard offseason workout, Barton laughs again and says, “No. But it is a good workout, though.”
Family tradition
Barton says his family ranch in Utah is “good size,” about 80 acres.
Woods said his ranch in Louisiana is way more than 100 acres. He raises cattle, for meat, for livestock shows, for kids to buy to take to livestock shows.
“I got a good, lil’ amount” of cows, Woods said, grinning.
“My dad’s running it right now, so whatever he’s got going on, he’s in control until I get back,” Woods said.
Woods grew up on a farm. He remembers how he learned how to drive: at 6 years old, his dad would get the farm truck moving and into first gear for little Al. Al then drove, standing up in the seat, while his father and uncle tossed hay bails out the back of the truck across the farm.
Woods has teammates on the Seahawks’ defense from urban Los Angeles (Benson Mayowa and Rasheem Green), Watts (Aashari Crosswell), Houston (Quandre Diggs and Jordyn Brooks), Tacoma (Lakiem Williams), Yonkers, New York (Gavin Heslop), plus beachy Hilton Head, South Carolina (Poona Ford), and metro suburbs Lewisville, Texas (Jamal Adams, just outside Dallas), and North Charleston, South Carolina (Dunlap).
So, yes, Woods has many non-rancher inquisitors in the locker room curious about what he does away from football — and why the farmer and father of three says he likes to be asleep by 9:30 each offseason night.
“I’ve got a lot of guys who ask me questions about it,” Woods said of ranching and farming. “But I don’t know of anybody actually doing it.”
Seattle’s unique environment
Woods is 34 years old. This is his 11th NFL season and sixth team. New Orleans drafted him in 2010, in the fourth round, but he played that season for Tampa Bay. Then he played for Seattle (2011), Pittsburgh (‘12-’13), Tennessee (‘14-’16), Indianapolis (‘17-’18) and the Seahawks again in 2019.
After all those different locker rooms, coaches, teammates, schemes and cities, Woods has a unique perspective on the way NFL daily life can be.
He also has an appreciation for how daily life is with Carroll’s Seahawks.
“For one, man, they like to keep you fresh,” Woods said before he got one of Carroll’s veteran rest days in camp recently. “I love the way they work. They are: get on the field, do your work, get out. This isn’t one of those places where they drag (practice) out three, 3 1/2 hours just because they are trying to keep you busy.
“It’s a true training camp. It ain’t like a day care.”
As you can probably gather, Woods doesn’t do day care.
This training camp, Woods’ role has expanded over his 2019 job with the Seahawks.
Two years ago he was for Seattle what he is now: a Carroll-standard veteran signing as a run-stopping nose tackle. The coach has coveted those since having Brandon Mebane from 2011 through the Seahawks’ consecutive Super Bowl teams of 2014 and ‘15. The coach has signed Ahtyba Rubin, Ted Johnson and Woods to fill that role since Mebane left.
In 2019 with Seattle, Woods had the second-best season, by statistical measure, of his 11-year career. He had 32 tackles (16 of them solo), three of those for losses with and one sack.
Last year, Carroll went against his norm. He went with 2018 undrafted free agent Poona Ford and ‘19 rookie free agent Bryan Mone at nose tackle, instead of a veteran. That was after Woods signed last year in free agency to play for Jacksonville.
Then as the coronavirus pandemic raged across the U.S., Woods took advantage of the league’s option to players to opt out of the 2020 season over COVID-19 concerns.
Woods’ reason?
“My daughter was born, March 1st (of 2020),” Woods said of his third child, Anyia.
Told that’s a darn good reason, he said, “yes, sir.”
After the birth went well and as Anyia grew, so did Woods’ desire to play football again.
Carroll’s desire to have Woods back with the Seahawks grew this spring when they lost defensive tackle Jarran Reed to a contract with Kansas City, after Reed refused Seattle’s effort to lower his salary-cap charge for 2021 of $13,975,000.
Nine days after the Seahawks couldn’t trade Reed and waived him, Woods signed with Seattle. He got one year and $2.5 million.
Why Seattle?
“For one, they win. It’s as simple as that,” he said. “And then I had made a lot of good friends when I was here. I love the coaches.
“It was an easy decision for me to come back.”
Coordinator Ken Norton Jr.’s system was yet another reason Woods signed back with the Seahawks.
“I love it, man,” he said. “I love the fact I can play nose (tackle), over the center, ‘zero nose,’ and then change it up and get to shade off (to the side) of the ball. So it’s a good mix of the two.”
Expanded role
Some have likened the depth on the Seahawks’ defensive line this year to that of the Super Bowl teams of seven and six years ago.
No. Those teams went 10 deep on quality, experienced defensive linemen who alternated in and out of games as if on hockey line changes, exhausting opposing offensive lines. Heck, Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril were reserves on those Seattle D-lines.
This one is lacking that depth, particularly inside at tackle. With Reed gone, Woods is playing a more varied role, on running and passing downs. He is more valuable and versatile right now than in either of his two previous one-year stints with Seattle. It’s Woods, Ford, Mone and that’s about it at defensive tackle. That’s why ends Robert Nkemdiche and L.J. Collier have been playing inside at tackle for much of training camp.
Nkemdiche, a former first-round pick of Arizona, returned to practice Tuesday after being out more than a week injured.
Woods played 42% of the defensive snaps for the Seahawks in 2019, the last season he played. That season ended with him suspended into Seattle’s divisional-round playoff loss at Green Bay for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing substances.
Woods may get more than 42% of Seattle’s defensive snaps this season.
“I have a feeling that Al is going to be a really big factor for us,” Carroll said. “I’m really excited to have him back and he’s really fired up to be here. ...
“It was important to see how he returned; was he able to condition himself? He’s a big man, and it’s hard for the older big guys to continue to push. But he’s got a great makeup and character about him.
“He looks great. He doesn’t look like he missed a beat.”
So it’s a good thing for the Seahawks and Woods that he didn’t play and ranched instead last season.
“We might have benefited from that,” Carroll said.
They have. Woods is the freshest 34-year-old defensive tackle in the NFL.
“Well, yeah. I mean, I took a whole year off,” Woods said. “So, I’m really fresh. I feel really good.”
This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 7:47 AM.
