Charles Woodson isnt the best NFL defensive player in history

July 11, 2024

Oakland Raiders defensive back Charles Woodson announced he’ll retire at the end of this season.

“2015 is going to be my last season playing in the NFL,” Woodson said on Tuesday. “Was it a tough decision? Kind of in a way. But a couple weeks ago it hit me that this would be it.”

Oakland drafted him out of Michigan, where he won the Heisman Trophy, with the No. 4 overall pick in 1998. Woodson spent some of his career with Green Bay (he won a Super Bowl with them in 2010) but returned to the Raiders after the Packers cut him in 2013. Woodson is also one of only two players (Marcus Allen) to hit football’s superfecta of awards over their career: Heisman, rookie of the year, player of the year, and a Super Bowl.

“Charles Woodson is the consummate professional,” said Raiders Coach Jack Del Rio. “He is what I would call a generational player. His leadership, toughness and work ethic are unmatched. He loves football and, like many of the game’s greatest players, he loves to compete. He has been a pleasure to coach and he truly is a Raider great.”

Kent Babb, a sports features writer here at The Washington Post, took it a step further, calling Woodson “the greatest defensive player in NFL history.”

He will step aside with, assuming voting continues at its trend, more Pro Bowl nods than Deion Sanders, more interceptions than Ronnie Lott, having played more positions than Rod Woodson. Nine months from his 40th birthday, Woodson will finish his career having played five more seasons than Lawrence Taylor, who was largely finished by his early 30s; Woodson was just getting started.

He adapted and kept challenging himself, moving from corner to nickel to safety; just to mess with quarterbacks, Ryan used to line Woodson up at linebacker. He became a symbol of a changing NFL passing game and what defenses must do to stop it.

The eyeball test says Charles Woodson was a great defensive player, and certainly one that will be enshrined in Canton when eligible in 2020. Maybe you even consider him one of the best defensive backs to ever suit up — that too wouldn’t be a stretch. But best defensive player ever? Let’s take a look.

Measuring defensive performance is not easy. Luckily, Pro Football Reference makes Approximate Value available, Doug Drinen’s method of putting a single numerical value on any player’s season, at any position, from any year. In other words, a quick and easy way to measure the tangible production of defensive players.

The results certainly pass the smell test. Here’s a list of the top five career AV values for quarterbacks: Peyton Manning (269), Brett Favre (255), Fran Tarkenton (236), Dan Marino (216) and Tom Brady (206). Two Hall of Famers and three others that are first-ballot locks.

On the defensive side we have Reggie White (226), Bruce Smith (225), Ray Lewis (223), Derrick Brooks (194) and Rod Woodson (192). As you can see, no Charles Woodson on that list. The rest of the top 10 includes Junior Seau (191), Alan Page (185), Lawrence Taylor (182), Carl Eller (167) and Jim Marshall (164). Again, no Charles Woodson.

In fact, Charles Woodson doesn’t even make the cut for top five among defensive backs, ranking No. 8 all-time with 146 AV for his career, not including this season. A six-AV season like the past two years would push him up to No. 4 all time.

If we limit our player pool to the nine defensive backs that played 200 or more games and produced an AV of 130 or more, Charles Woodson ranks No. 8 in AV per game played

Stats not your thing? What about season accolades?

Charles Woodson was named to eight Pro Bowls, selected first team all-pro three times and won the rookie defensive player of the year award (1998) and NFL defensive player of the year (2009). Rod Woodson went to the Pro Bowl 11 times, was selected first team all-pro team six times and won a NFL defensive player of the year award (1993) — so you could argue his seasons were considered superior to that of Charles Woodson. Champ Bailey played from 1999 to 2013, a career that overlaps Charles Woodson’s, and was named to four more Pro Bowls with the same number of first-team all-pro nominations.

Pro Bowls and first-team all-pro selections aren’t the end-all-be-all of player valuation, however, they do show how much a player is thought of among his peers.

But this is a post about best defensive player ever, so let’s go with the notion that Charles Woodson is the best defensive back in NFL history — even though no stats are available to support that case, and those that are accessible, don’t — and see how he stands up to other defensive stalwarts also in the conversation.

The NFL released its own top 100 list in 2010. The five highest-rated defensive players on that list were Taylor (No. 3), White (No. 7), Dick Butkus (No. 10), Ronnie Lott (No. 11) and “Mean” Joe Greene (No. 13). Lewis, who also played in the NFL during Charles Woodson’s career, was No. 18.

Charles Woodson was not included on the list, and it is unlikely that a 13-year pro with two defensive player of the year awards already to his credit by 2010 would leapfrog 90 other players in six seasons to make it into the top 10 of the NFL’s top 100. He probably wouldn’t even make it into the top 20 to pass Lewis.

We could probably narrow the discussion down even further to the only two defensive players who won the most valuable player of the year award: Alan Page (1971) and Lawrence Taylor (1986).

SB Nations’s Arif Hasan makes the case that Page is one of the best defensive players of all time, based largely on him being two and a half sacks better than the second-best pass-rusher from the position, John Randle. Page recorded a sack on an estimated 2.34 percent of opponent’s drop-backs, which would be equivalent to an 11-to-12 sack season over 16 games in the current NFL. That percentage is close to what we see from J.J. Watt this season (13 1/2 on 518 passing snaps).

But it was Taylor who changed the game.

“Lawrence Taylor, defensively, has had as big an impact as any player I’ve ever seen,” former Raiders coach John Madden said back in 2005. “He changed the way defense is played, the way pass-rushing is played, the way linebackers play and the way offenses block linebackers.”

Michael Lewis, author of ‘The Blindside,’ agrees. Here is an excerpt which also describes Taylor’s impact on the sport:

A new force in pro football, Taylor demanded not just a tactical response but an explanation. Many people pointed to his unusual combination of size and speed. As one of the Redskins ’ linemen put it, “No human being should be six four, two forty-five, and run a four -five forty.” Bill Parcells thought Taylor’s size and speed were closer to the beginning than to the end of the explanation. New York Giants’ scouts were scouring the country for young men six three or taller, 240 pounds or heavier, with speed. They could be found. In that pool of physical specimens what was precious– far more precious than an inch, or ten pounds, or one tenth of a second–was Taylor’s peculiar energy and mind: relentless, manic, with grandiose ambitions and private standards of performance. Parcells believed that even in the NFL a lot of players were more concerned with seeming to want to win than with actually winning, and that many of them did not know the difference. What they wanted, deep down, was to keep their jobs, make their money, and go home. Lawrence Taylor wanted to win. He expected more of himself on the field than a coach would dare to ask of any player.

Whether you agree Taylor is the best defensive player or not we could probably find common ground on one key point: the players in contention for “best defensive player ever” fall into two categories, shut down corners and pass-rush specialists.

Pass-rush specialists are ranked according to sacks while shut down corners are valued by their ability to defend the pass and make interceptions. The problem with interceptions is they are largely random events. That’s not to say there isn’t skill involved, but one study by Brian Burke had it as an 80/20 split between random chance and skill while another from Football Outsiders had similar findings. Football Outsiders also found “the sack is a more common event that carries far less variation than the myriad of possibilities that come after a pass leaves the quarterback’s hand.”

In other words, all things being equal, you should give the nod to the pass rusher over the player who makes their reputation off interceptions, because the latter is more skillful on the football field.

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