Comparing Charles Woodson and Darrelle Revis
Despite holding most of the best receivers in the National Football League to minimal yardage and few touchdowns throughout the 16 game season, New York Jets’ cornerback Darrelle Revis finished second to Green Bay Packers’ cornerback Charles Woodson for the NFL’s 2009 Defensive Player of the Year award.
Woodson, who earned 28 out of a possible 50 votes, finished the season tied with a league-leading nine interceptions and returned three for touchdowns. However, I will argue that he was able to accumulate those stats against some of the league’s worst offensive teams and their equally weak receivers. Here’s a look at Woodson’s games this season, with a mention of the team’s top receiver:
September 13th vs. Chicago: Two tackles – Devin Hester: 4 catches for 90 yards and a touchdown
September 20th vs. Cincinnati: 10 tackles, two interceptions, 1 return TD – and how did Woodson do against Cincinnati’s best receiver, Chad Ochocino? He “held” him to four catches, 91 yards and a touchdown.
September 27th at St. Louis: Six tackles and one interception. And the Rams’ best receiver? That’s right, they have no one.
October 5th at Minnesota: Two tackles – Bernard Berrian: 6 catches for 75 yards and a touchdown. Or is it Sidney Rice? Well he had 5 catches for 70 yards and a score.
October 18th vs. Detroit: Three tackles and Calvin Johnson did not play due to injury.
October 25th at Cleveland: Three tackles, an interception and a forced fumble. Do we really need to try to pick a Browns wide receiver?
November 1st vs. Minnesota: Three tackles – Bernard Berrian: 3 catches for 47 yards and a touchdown; Percy Harvin: 5 catches for 84 yards and a touchdown; Sidney Rice: 4 catches for 40 yards.
November 8th at Tampa Bay: Six tackles and rookie quarterback Josh Freeman threw for three touchdowns.
November 15th vs. Dallas: Nine tackles, one sack, one interception, two forced fumbles. Roy Williams (!) 5 catches for 105 yards and a touchdown.
November 22nd vs. San Francisco: Three tackles – Michael Crabtree: 4 catches for 77 yards and a touchdown (his first career score)
November 26th (Thanksgiving Day) at Detroit: Seven tackles, one sack, two interceptions, one returned for a touchdown. Calvin Johnson (playing hurt) 2 catches for 10 yards and a touchdown.
December 7th vs. Baltimore: Four tackles, Kelley Washington with four catches, 39 yards and a touchdown.
December 13th at Chicago: Three tackles and an interception. Johnny Knox with five catches for 83 yards and a touchdown (Devin Hester out with an injury – he was also a cornerback two seasons ago).
December 20th at Pittsburgh: Nine tackles and “held” Hines Ward to seven catches for 126 yards.
December 27th vs. Seattle: Four tackles; Deion Branch with five catches for 53 yards.
January 3rd at Arizona: No tackles, but one interception. Larry Fitzgerald with three catches, 17 yards and a touchdown, although Arizona had nothing to play for.
So looking back, Charles Woodson led the league with nine interceptions, which he got against seven different teams: Cincinnati, St. Louis, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago and Arizona. He gave up 90+ yards and/or a touchdown to Devin Hester, Chad Ochocinco, Bernard Berrian, Sidney Rice, Roy Williams, Michael Crabtree, Calvin Johnson, Kelley Washington, Hines Ward and Larry Fitzgerald.
I am not going to go into a full breakdown for Darrelle Revis, but will simply show the top receivers he faced and their games against him:
September 13th at Houston: Andre Johnson held to four catches for 35 yards.
September 20th vs. New England: Randy Moss with four catches for 24 yards.
October 4th at New Orleans: Marques Colston had two catches for 33 yards. Looking further, Devery Henderson had three catches for 21 yards and Robert Meachem had one catch for 19 yards.
October 18th vs. Buffalo: Terrell Owens with three catches for 13 yards.
November 22nd at New England: Randy Moss finishes with five catches for 34 yards and a touchdown (a four-yard TD on a quick slant that Brady ended up lofting to Moss, who pushed off of Revis).
November 29th vs. Carolina: Steve Smith held to one catch for five yards.
December 3rd at Buffalo: Terrell Owens with three catches for 31 yards.
December 20th vs. Atlanta: Roddy White held to four catches for 33 yards.
December 27th at Indianapolis: Reggie Wayne held to three catches for 33 yards (I understand they only played a half, but we need to recognize that Wayne didn’t do much when he was in the game.)
January 3rd vs. Cincinnati: Chad Ochocinco did not record a single catch in the first half, which was the only half he played.
In total against Andre Johnson, Randy Moss twice, Marques Colston, Terrell Owens twice, Steve Smith, Roddy White, Reggie Wayne and Chad Ochocino: nine games, 29 catches, 241 yards and one touchdown. That’s an average of 3.22 catches, 26.78 yards and 0.11 touchdowns per game against some of the game’s best wide receivers.
I appreciate that Charles Woodson collected more statistics while playing in the amazingly disappointing NFC Central, but there is absolutely no way that a wide receiver in the National Football League would rather line up against Darrelle Revis than Woodson. Voters clearly saw Woodson more because the Packers are on national television on a consistent basis (including Thanksgiving Day) and as a result, never saw Revis in action enough to realize that he is the single best cover-corner in the National Football League and consequently its best defensive player in 2009.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by KingMorland: Comparing Charles Woodson and Darrelle Revis http://bit.ly/8xwmFv I’m sure @thebiglead will agree…
This list is absolutely ridiculous. You should be ashamed of yourself. The Packers didn’t assign Woodson a given WR on any given today. Just to prove how little you know about Charles Woodson’s 2009 campaign, his primary responsbility against Dallas was actually against Jason Witten and they also used him as a pass rusher.
You really can’t compare what Revis and Woodson do. They have completely different roles in their schemes. What you are doing is pulling the stat line and posting the WR with the biggest stats against GB and trying to claim that he was Woodson’s responsbility.
Woodson didn’t have a certain responsibility at any given time. He played all over the field and the defensive coaching staff trusted him to use his instincts to line up at different spots and make plays. You are completely clueless and very unethical.
Revis and Woodson play different roles in their respective defenses. The stats don’t lie. Woodson had a greater impact in the games he played. The guy WON games for his team. Revis simply handled his assignment.
All that matters is the Jets were #1 and the Packers were #2. Woodson wasn’t used to always blanket the opposing teams best WR. What your list says is that the Jets have a better secondary than Green Bay. Maybe a reason why the Packers used Woodson differnetly. If they simply used Woodson to stop the #1 WR opposing teams would simply target other players in the Packers secondary. They used Woodson as a weapon to make plays against the opposing offense. Its simply a matter of opinion of how a defense should use its best defensive player.You aren’t God. Your opinion isn’t the gospel. Ok.
You’re ignoring the fact that Woodson had his best games against Carson Palmer, Kyle Boller, Derek Anderson, Tony Romo, Matthew Stafford, Jay Cutler and Matt Leinart.
People keep saying that at least Revis can still play for a Super Bowl ring, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be doing so without a DPOY award too.
Woodson was very good, but I still feel Revis was better this season.
Chris, you make good points in your response, but I don’t think Andrew ever claimed to be God or that his opinion was gospel. It’s a blog. It’s supposed to be his opinion.
As a Redskins fan, I am completely unbiased in this argument. I think it could have gone to either guy. But if you are the best defensive player on the best defensive team in the league, doesn’t that mean something, too?
I think it’s hard to give individual awards in football anyway. Neither Revis nor Woodson would have been as good as they were without ten other guys doing their jobs, too. The reason Woodson was able to wreak havoc on the field the way he did was because other guys had his back. Same for Revis.
And I have to admit, that my opinion has been somewhat skewed by the Packers’ defensive performance in the playoffs. I know that the award was voted on before last weekend’s games, but they gave up 51 points in the highest scoring game in NFL playoff history. Kurt Warner deserves a lot of credit there and we don’t know how the Jets would have performed against the Cardinals (they didn’t play them this season), but it definitely affects my opinion. Could you imagine this Jets defense giving up 51 points like that this season? I couldn’t.
[...] Comparing Charles Woodson and Darrelle Revis- King Morland great comparison of woodson v. revis i wish the voters would pay a bit more attention instead of just looking at stats..its not even close __________________ Quote: [...]
Revis had the best year ever for a corner. He was robbed. If Woodson wasn’t good enough to play the top offensive WR threat each week, why is even up for this award against a player of Revis’ ability?
A pick six against Tampa, and one in a meaningless game in week 17-thats 67% of his pick six’ for the entire year! Big deal. Noone in the history of the NFL has done what Revis did this year. The top CB in the NFL should have all zero’s, zero tackles, zero interceptions, zero passes defensed, that is the definition of shut down!
[...] out this comparison of CBs Charles Woodson and Darrelle [...]
We’ve already seen that Revis was a better player than Woodson. Against the best competition in the playoffs Woodson’s defense with him as the “leader” gave up 45 offensive points. Revis on the other hand held ochocinco to 2 catches and 24 yds. with an int. Woodson was Fitzgerald for most of the game and Fitzgerald had 6 catches for 87 yds. and 5 TDs. Revis was the defensive player of the year no question. Faced better competition and did a great job accomplishing his job. Um, the Jets are still playing and um the pack are at home. Revis was dominating and is definitely going to win this award however, he should have won it this year.
“The top CB in the NFL should have all zero’s, zero tackles, zero interceptions, zero passes defensed, that is the definition of shut down!” that is the definition of a pussy. you still have the responsibility to make tackles…are you saying that if the ball wasnt thrown revis’s way, revis is done playing for the remainder of the play? i really didn’t see anything extraordinary from revis.
better recievers but mediocre quarterbacks.
the brady to moss touchdown was a 4 yard slant and moss didn’t even touch revis on the play – revis just stood there.
i agree revis should have won DPOY, but don’t tell lies to make him sound better