UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday. January 24, 1996
5B
Woodson's injured knee to be tested in Super Bowl
The Associated Press
TEMPE, Ariz. — Rod Woodson has high standards for himself, and the fact that he'll be playing in Sunday's Super Bowl against the Dallas Cowboys means his reconstructed right knee has met them.
cent sure I can play," the Pittsbur g h Steeler cornerback said yesterday. "I can do every
"Im at 80, maybe 85 percent, but I'm 100 percent."
thing I did before. If I couldn't cut or come back, I wouldn't play. If I couldn't cover Michael Irvin or Kevin Williams, I wouldn't play."
Irvin was shocked that Woodson was playing.
"Do you think I'm worried about Rod Woodson coming up and playing me five months after that surgery?" he said. "That's pretty wild. Maybe they might put him at safety for a play or something like that. But to play cornerback and put him on the NFL Autobahn alone, that's scary."
Suppose this was the third week of the season instead of the last. Would Woodson take the risk and play then? He smiled at the question.
"If this were the third week, I'd wait," he said. "In the third week, you still have a lot of time. This is the Super Bowl. There is no more time."
And the risk?
"You always have risk," he said. "I'll take the risk. I don't think I'll get hurt. I think the knee is strong enough and stable enough. There is no concern. If I had any concern, I wouldn't do it."
Woodson has made a remarkable recovery after tearing up his knee in the opening game of the season against Detroit. How much he will play Sunday is questionable.
"I want to play every down and do what I did before," Woodson said. "I don't think it will be a dramatic change. I don't want to upset our defense, but I want to play.
"I understand this defense. I've played it a long time. I hope no feelings are hurt."
Quite the contrary. The Steelers secondary, shuffled after Woodson tore the anterior cruciate ligament and some cartilage while chasing Detroit's Barry Sanders, is excited about his return.
Carnell Lake, a converted linebacker who moved from safety to the cornerback spot after the injury, said he had watched Woodson's progress in practice.
"He's been playing on the scout team against our receivers, the best group of receivers in the league," he said. "If he can make plays against our receivers, he can make plays against anybody."
"We wanted to go into this game with our guns fully loaded, and Rod's another of the bullets," he said.
heard that Woodson would suit up until he came onto the field for photo day.
"All right!" he exclaimed. "Let's get it going."
Cornerback Willie Williams hadn't
Woodson remembers the injury in detail.
"The turf is sticky when it's dry," he said. "It was a swing pass to Sanders, a routine play. I tried to plant my foot twice. The second time I planted it, my knee gave. I knew it was the ACL right away."
Ordinarily, that's a season-ending injury and an automatic assignment to the injured reserve list. The Steelers chose to keep Woodson on the active roster, though, just in case. Woodson was grateful for the faith coach Bill Cowher showed in him.
The original diagnosis was that he would be gone four to six months. "I took that to be four months," Woodson said. "What's bad about rehab is the routine, the monotony. You have to do it. I got range of motion back after the first month. Because of the cartilage damage, I had no weight bearing on the knee for eight weeks."
Through it all, Cowher watched the slow, painful progress of the cornerback, who was chosen to the NFL's 75-year all-time team last year.
"He's a guy who so easily could have said, 'The season is over.' But that's never been his approach," Cowher said. "There was an obstacle in front of him. He worked his tail off the last three weeks, and hopefully he'll contribute."
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