Despite not having their star cornerback Rod Woodson, the 1995 Pittsburgh Steelers made a run to Super Bowl XXX against the Dallas Cowboys. Woodson tore his ACL in Week One that season attempting to tackle Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders, but ended up returning and playing 12 snaps in the Super Bowl, a game the Steelers eventually lost. But Woodson was able to play because former Steelers head coach Bill Cowher didn’t put Woodson on IR, believing his star defensive player when he told him that he could recover in time.
Woodson talked about the situation Monday on the All Things Covered podcast with Bryant McFadden and Patrick Peterson.
“I give a lot of love to Bill Cowher, because I remember we had the game on Sunday, had the meeting on Monday with the doctors, so me and Bill and the team orthopedic surgeon in there. And I remember him saying it might be a four-six month recovery,” Woodson recalled. “And I said, ‘Four months, hey I can play. And Bill said ‘What?’ I said, ‘I can come back in four months.’
“I had to talk Bill into it. But Bill Cowher letting me play, and our team played with only 52 players on the active roster the whole year. That was major. And obviously nobody else got hurt so I got to play in my first Super Bowl.”
As a football player, playing in the Super Bowl can be the greatest triumph of your career. The Steelers had a Super Bowl-caliber team in 1994 but lost to the San Diego Chargers in a shocking upset in the AFC Championship Game. Woodson knew they had a good enough team in ‘95 and wanted to have an opportunity to play with them.
“At this moment, I want to play with my guys,” he said. “And if Bill gave me the opportunity, which he did and which most coaches would’ve not, most coaches would’ve put me down on IR and been done with it. At least Bill listened to me and allowed me to have that opportunity. I’m indebted to him for the rest of my life.”
Woodson had the opportunity to play in two more Super Bowls, one with the Baltimore Ravens where he was a key part of their defense in 2000, and another with the Oakland Raiders in 2002, a game they lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But you never know when the opportunity is going to come, if it will ever come, to play in the Super Bowl. So for Woodson, he saw ‘95 as his opportunity, worked hard in rehab to meet the four-month recovery process and then was able to play snaps in the Super Bowl.
Cowher trusting his star and not replacing him also speaks a lot about him as a coach. As Woodson said, a lot of coaches would’ve put him on IR and filled out the 53-man roster. Obviously, back then if you were put on IR, you couldn’t return during the season as you can now, so Woodson would’ve been ineligible to return at all and wouldn’t have had his Steelers moment in the Super Bowl.
Woodson credited Carnell Lake for stepping up in his absence, and the team as a whole did a good job keeping its eye on the prize even with Woodson sidelined. While the Steelers couldn’t get the win, it was a good season — at that point the best in Cowher’s tenure — and Woodson being able to come back and play is one of the better stories in team history.
