On the first day of Broncos training camp, in late July, Joe Woods dug into his “bag of tricks” and pulled out the No Fly Zone’s latest accessory. Weeks later the defensive backs would don custom blue-and-orange tights that served as colorful reminders of their place among the NFL’s best secondaries. But first, Woods made them wear something a little more functional: blinders.
To Woods, the Denver defensive backs coach since 2015, the blinders were a common tool, one he had used since he was a coach at Hofstra in 1998 trying to turn a group of raw athletes into refined defensive backs.
To his collection of Pro Bowlers and other veterans, the blinders were kind of weird, and drew a few laughs, along with confused looks, as players tried to navigate the field without a periphery.
“He’s always looking for a way for us to get better and improve, especially fundamentally and our technique every year,” Denver cornerback Chris Harris said Woods, 46. “That was just another way.”
In recent years, the Broncos’ secondary has not only embraced but boasted about their preparation for gamedays, a routine founded on film study and technique. The game-changing takeaways and air-tight pass defense keyed the Broncos’ Super Bowl run last season and have defined their attempted title defense in 2016. A lot of it traces back to Woods, the No Fly Zone’s air-traffic controller.
Now with nearly 25 years of coaching experience as well as one flashy Super Bowl title ring, Woods could be next in line for a coordinator job, if not more.
“He’s tremendous,” said Broncos coach Gary Kubiak. “When I came here, one of my very close friends in this business — he’s a defensive coordinator in Miami (Vance Joseph) and a really good coach — told me, ‘You go get this guy.’ I didn’t know Joe. Boy, was he right. He’s been special.”
Ending and Beginning
The crazy part is Woods’ journey started with just a conversation. It was 1992 and Woods had finished four years as a defensive back at Illinois State. He was preparing for a future without football.
For a few minutes, anyway.
“It was after our last game and we had to go in and turn in all our equipment and do our check-out stuff,” Woods said. “I walked through the hallway and our position coach, John Bowers, said, ‘Hey, did you ever think about coaching?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘You want to give it a shot?’ ”
He did and he would, starting as the defensive backs coach at Muskingum College in Ohio.
“I always remember making $187 every two weeks trying to figure out how to make my car payments and eat, and I was living in an old fraternity house,” he said. “The way I made money was I had to clean out all the bunks in there and they paid me, and I used to line the fields before high school games. That’s how it started.”
It would lead him to six more schools as a positional coach, before he made the leap to the NFL as part of Tampa Bay’s secondary coaching staff.
“It’s just like, ‘Man, I’ve arrived,’ ” Woods recalled. “Making that transition to the NFL was just an eye-opening experience.”
In part because of the players. With the Buccaneers, he was the rookie among cornerbacks Brian Kelly and Ronde Barber, a five-time Pro Bowler still regarded as one of the best slot corners in league history. And in part because of his colleagues, who included then-defensive backs coach Mike Tomlin and assistant Raheem Morris, both of whom became NFL head coaches.
Tampa Bay was the launching pad, but also a stop for refinement before Woods would go on to Minnesota and work with Pro Bowlers Antoine Winfield and Darren Sharper and later a rookie cornerback, Xavier Rhodes; to Oakland, where he would be paired with Hall of Fame-bound safety Charles Woodson; and to Denver, where he has a quintet of elite defensive backs in Harris, Aqib Talib, Bradley Roby, T.J. Ward and Darian Stewart.
“I always was a big film watcher going back to my high school,” Woods said. “But it really took off when I got to Tampa with Mike Tomlin. Mike taught me a different way to watch tape, because he used to play offense. I really learned how to watch tape from an offensive perspective. It started in high school, but that’s when I really got fine-tuned, with Mike Tomlin.”
Attention to Detail
Rhodes’ memories of film sessions with Woods are vivid but far from unique. He remembers the extended meetings and hours spent watching cut-ups of first downs, second downs and third downs, red zone, two-minute football and more.
“Joe would keep you in the meeting room forever,” Rhodes said. “But it’s a good thing. One memory I have of him: Everybody would be out of meetings, getting dressed for the practice, and the DBs would still be in meetings watching film. He was a dude that loves what he does. He always wanted to critique you and watch film.”
More than even his players could imagine.
“I remember Xavier, when we drafted him, he came in and said, ‘Hey, Coach, I hope you don’t get mad at me because I’m going to be in there watching film with y’all all the time,” Woods said. “I used to cut up all his tape and meet with him every Friday at the end of the week during the offseason. After about a month he said, ‘Hey, Coach, I know I said I wanted to watch film, but you hold me hostage.’”
Rhodes’ story mirrors that of others who have worked with Woods. Leslie Frazier, the Ravens’ secondary coach and former Vikings head coach, recalls meetings in Minnesota where Woods referenced specific routes on specific downs by specific receivers some six years prior.
“I’m like, ‘Man, Joe. I’m just thinking about what happened last week and you’re going back five, six years,’ ” Frazier said. “That was Joe.
Broncos cornerback Kayvon Webster said Woods will sometimes dig up film decades old. Harris has said Woods “laps” him in film study to not only tip off his players to opponents’ formations and situational plays, but also the tendencies and nuances of certain receivers.
“A lot of coaches in the league are just like, ‘Hey, this is your guy. You’re going to just line up on him,’ ” Harris said. “But Joe is kind of like, ‘Hey, this is your guy. He’s good at this and this, and you might want to do this on him.’ So he gives you a little more.”
The Broncos (8-4) lead the NFL in pass defense (an average of 192.7 yards allowed per game), interception return yards (284) and points off takeaways (103) heading into Sunday. Since the start of last season, the Broncos have scored 10 defensive touchdowns, second-most in the league. Woods’ secondary has accounted for seven.
That bag of tricks carries results.
