The fit on paper might not be all that clear between Jalen Ramsey and the Pittsburgh Steelers, but on the field the Steelers organization sees Ramsey similar to a past great.
That would be former Steelers star and Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive back Rod Woodson.
In an appearance on ESPN’s Get Up Tuesday morning, Jeremy Fowler reported the Steelers see some similarities of between Woodson and Ramsey, whom they acquired Monday in a blockbuster trade along with TE Jonnu Smith, trading away Minkah Fitzpatrick in the process.
“This is a case by case situation where a player like Jalen Ramsey just happened to be available where they feel like he gives them more flexibility than what they had with Minkah Fitzpatrick,” Fowler said of the Ramsey acquisition for the Steelers. “He can play slot cornerback, he can play safety if you need to. They see shades of Rod Woodson, that’s a name, a former cornerback that they had back in the day.”
Ramsey is entering his age 31 season and appears to have slowed down a bit. While he can still handle boundary and slot corner roles, there’s the question of if he needs to try to transition to safety to prolong his career, similar to what Woodson did in his Hall of Fame career.
Woodson spent the first 12 years of his career at cornerback, with the first 10 coming in Pittsburgh, and then one season in San Francisco and Baltimore. But then, ahead of the 1999 season with the Baltimore Ravens, Woodson moved to safety to begin another chapter of his career.
In three seasons with Baltimore and two seasons with the Oakland Raiders, Woodson played 74 games at safety, closing out his illustrious career with four Pro Bowl trips, one first-team All-Pro and one second-team All-Pro accolade at the safety position, too.
That move to safety for Woodson was one he wanted. In an interview on Steelers Depot in 2018, Woodson stated that after his 10th season with the Steelers ahead of free agency, he told head coach Bill Cowher he wanted to play safety, as he was a natural there, having played it in high school and college before moving to corner in the pros.
Eventually, he departed the Steelers in a contract dispute, played one more year at corner and then moved to safety. The rest is history.
That could be the case for Ramsey, though he’s been a corner his whole life. Back in 2021 in an interview, Ramsey stated he’d be willing to move to safety later in his career, emulating another Hall of Famer, that being Charles Woodson.
“I wouldn’t have no problems moving to safety. I love corner right now. The corner money’s better. I’m cool where I’m at,” Ramsey said in 2021 on the “Million Dollaz Worth of Game” podcast.
That was going on four seasons ago now, and Ramsey turns 31 in October. A move to safety could be in the making, though the Steelers believe they’ll be able to use Ramsey all over defensively at boundary corner, slot corner and even some safety reps here and there.
With his size, instincts and physicality, a move to safety full-time could be the best for him at this point in his career, much like that move to safety was in 1999 for Woodson at age 34.
Back on June 11 in an appearance on the Up and Adams Show, Woodson even weighed in on a potential move to safety for Ramsey.
“I think mindset, he is capable of doing it,” Woodson said of a possible Ramsey move to safety, according to video via the show’s X account. “I think he does have that physicality. He does like to tackle. If if he’s willing to put his body through those rigors…if he’s willing to take some of that punishment in the core, because you have to be a willing tackler as a safety, I think he can do it because he tackles as a corner.”
For now, it seems like the Steelers are keeping him at cornerback and will move him around, similar to how they did with Patrick Peterson during the 2023 season, starting him out at boundary corner, and then slowly working him into the mix at safety and slot corner at times.
But a move to safety could be in the making, following a path that guys like Rod and Charles Woodson did before him.
