At 34, ‘Big Al’ Woods celebrating, flourishing in Red Bryant-like Seahawks role
.JPG "Houston Texans running back Rex Burkhead (28) is stopped by Seattle Seahawks defensive tackle Al Woods (99) during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 12, 2021, in Houston. (AP Photo/Eric Christian Smith)")
The man they rightly call “Big Al” Woods has become part disruptor, part difference maker, part WWE wrestler.
He’s all the reason for the Seahawks’ improved defense.
Playing with his parents Phyllis and Al in the stadium watching Sunday in Houston, the 360-pound defensive tackle celebrated each one of his five tackles during Seattle’s blowout win over the Texans. The native Louisianan produced stops, a sack — and theatrical demonstrations. The first one was on the first play of the game. Another was when he stuffed the Texans trying to run for a touchdown from the 1-yard line.
“Big Al” strutted away from plays. He stomped like he was mashing grapes. He flailed his arms skyward. He preened. He stuck out his chest, which on the 6-foot-4 Woods is as wide as this sprawling city’s ubiquitous, eight-lane freeways.
“He’s just on fire,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said, “and he’s so much fun to watch because he’s having so much fun.
“He’s having the time of his life playing. Really excited about it.”
So is Woods.
In the second quarter of Seattle’s 33-13 romp, Woods combined with teammate Rasheem Green to sack Texans quarterback Davis Mills. Woods celebrated just the seventh sack of his 11-year career by staying on his back on the artificial grass.
Like a dying bug, he thrust his arms toward the bright blue Houston sky.
“Yeah, that was great,” Carroll said. “He’s usually really good on his feet, but then he just took what he had and made the most of it.”
Woods was, on this day, the showiest defensive tackle not named Aaron Donald.
What had the usually overlooked nose tackle in Hulk Hogan, look-at-me mode at Houston?
“Just overly excited to be out there with the team. It was just a beautiful day, man,” Woods said, in a tunnel of NRG Stadium leading to the Seahawks’ bus. “The sun was out. No clouds in the sky. Wasn’t gray. It was just a beautiful time.
“Just excited for all of that. It just kind of came out every time I made a decent play.”
Thing is, he’s been doing it in gray-sky Seattle, in domed stadiums — everywhere. He’s been making more-than-decent plays most of this season. Woods is a key reason Seattle’s defense has gone from steamrolled to stout in the last seven weeks.
Most football people see a 34-year-old nose tackle and think: big size, limited energy, limited role, limited impact — and old.
The Seahawks see a versatile run stopper, pass rusher and blocker devourer who is playing like he’s 24. At his very least, Woods frees linebackers Bobby Wagner and Jordyn Brooks for the more than 100 tackles each has this season.
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Like Red Bryant
The last two games in particular, Carroll, defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. and line coach Clint Hurtt have moved Woods around Seattle’s front. Instead of his typical nose-tackle spot lining head up or just off the helmet of the opposing center, in the “A” gap between the center and guard, Woods has been there, plus on the outside shoulders of guards. He’s sometimes more outside, opposite offensive tackles. He’s even been closer to tight ends, like a defensive end.
The idea is to create match-up advantage with Woods against smaller blockers depending on down and distance. It also keeps the center from knowing how Woods and Seattle’s defensive linemen are going to be arrayed for any given play as the center and his quarterback are making protection calls immediately before the snap.
Basically, Woods has become Carroll’s 2021 Red Bryant.
When Carroll got to Seattle to run the Seahawks in 2010, Bryant was entrenched as a giant tackle inside on Seattle’s defensive line. Carroll and his first Seattle staffs began moving Bryant up and down the line. That change transformed Bryant’s career and the Seahawks’ defensive front. Bryant earned a new contract with $14.5 million guaranteed then won a Super Bowl with Seattle in the 2013 season, before he priced himself out of the Seahawks’ post-championship plans.
Woods is now doing what Bryant did for Carroll and Seattle nine years ago — only he’s about seven years older than Bryant was when he became Carroll’s versatile tackle-end.
“He’s a very special talent because he’s such a big guy,” Carroll said Monday of Woods. “He’s got such great length. He’s really smart, and he’s physical as well. He could handle a move, and if we put him in some different spots and we moved him out on the tight end some and the tackle area, that he might be really unique at that.
“Really, the exact same Red Bryant realization. It was in the same thought. It kind of changed Red’s career a little bit. You’re seeing, because of some injuries and all that, that we’re not playing him, Al, outside all of the time. We are moving him around and trying to get him on the move.”
Known as an early-down, situational player against the run in his first 10 NFL seasons for Tampa Bay, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Tennessee and Indianapolis, Woods is becoming too good to take off the field. He’s spending running and passing downs in opposing backfields. He has 1 1/2 sacks this season. The only year of his career he’s had more sacks was in 2013 when he had two for the Steelers.
He’s also playing more than he ever has. At 52% of Seattle’s defensive snaps through 13 games, Woods is on pace to set a career-high in plays.
“Basically, wherever they need me, that’s where I go, stop plays, whatever the case may be,” he said.
‘I can still move’
As was evident with his glee in Houston, Woods loves his new, varied role.
“Just to show that I’m still versatile, at the age of 34 — because people love to throw my age around,” Woods said.
“I’m here to say: Age ain’t nothin’ but a number.”
Yes, his happiness fades when you talk about his age.
“Definitely good to show that I can still move, and people don’t need to be taking him for granted — ‘Oh, he’s old. He’s 34 years old,’” Woods said.
“Who gives a (care, though he didn’t say ‘care’). I can still move.
“I’m glad I can prove that point.”
This is Woods’ third stint with the Seahawks. He played two games for them from September to November of 2011, after Seattle had claimed him off waivers from Tampa Bay. That was a year after New Orleans had cut its rookie fourth-round pick out of his home-state LSU before he played a game for the Saints.
Woods returned to the Seahawks for the 2019 season as one of the veteran, free-agent run stoppers Carroll has habitually signed just before seasons to augment his defensive tackles. He was two years ago for Seattle what he’d consistently been in the NFL: a rotational player who’d never played more than about half and usually fewer than 40% of his team’s snaps in a season.
In December 2019 the NFL suspended Woods four games for violating the league’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs. He missed the Seahawks’ playoff games at Philadelphia and Green Bay in January 2020. He still has yet to play in a postseason game in his career. He was on injured reserve when his Colts were in the playoffs at the end of the 2018 season and the Steelers left him inactive for their one playoff game of the 2011 season, at Denver.
Woods signed with Jacksonville to play the 2020 season for $2.5 million. 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.
His reason?
“My daughter was born, March 1st (of 2020),” Woods said of his third child, Anyia.
After the birth went well and as Anyia grew, so did Woods’ desire to leave the 40-acre ranch he runs outside Elton, Louisiana, and play football again.
Thanks, Jarran Reed
The Jaguars released Woods this March.
That was around the time the Seahawks lost defensive tackle Jarran Reed to the Kansas City Chiefs, in something of a debacle.
That debacle has turned into Woods.
Seattle wanted the valued Reed to stay but take a pay cut. He refused. They tried to trade him. Reed torpedoed that. The Seahawks ultimately released him to save $8,975,000 in salary-cap space for this year. They expected to re-sign him at a lower cost. Reed signed instead with the Chiefs.
So Carroll needed a replacement on the interior of his defensive line to play with Bryan Mone and re-signed Poona Ford. When Woods became available Carroll eagerly brought him back to Seattle, in April.
He got a one-year deal worth what Jacksonville had agreed to pay him last year: $2.5 million, including a $750,000 guaranteed and per-game bonuses of up to $500,000.
It’s been a bargain for Seattle.
“He’s been huge,” Wagner said. “Like I said, he’s been a guy that loves to keep guys off of linebackers, and linebackers love to hear that.
“But he also can make plays. There’s a play where he throws the lineman and goes and makes the tackle, I think he might have missed it. But that kind of havoc is something that teams have to pay attention to and it takes the eyes off of you and allows us to make plays.”
It sure looks like the year off in 2020 has refresh if not re-birthed Woods’ career.
“I guess you can say that,” Woods said Sunday.
He says the way Carroll and Seattle’s coaches give him and other veterans practice days off to rest during the season, the lighter tempo at which the Seahawks practice as the wear and tear increases into November and December, also have him more vibrant than he’s been this month than he’s been this late in any previous NFL season.
“Oh, 100%,” he said. “Just, the way they take care of me at practice, the way they take care of me on work days. Allowing me that if my body doesn’t feel right, if something doesn’t feel right, we address it right then and there.
“We don’t let it go.”
This story was originally published December 14, 2021 at 7:50 AM.
