After four years in Dallas, the intellectual Xavier Woods is fitting in perfectly with the Vikings
Woods has become a defensive leader with his preparation and football IQ
By Sam Ekstrom
EAGAN — Chalk it up to keen decision-making, uncommonly good health or superior talent, but the Vikings have scarcely had to hunt for safeties in Mike Zimmer’s time with the organization.
From 2014-20, there were no huge free agents swings, no splashy draft picks at the position. Zimmer inherited mainstay Harrison Smith along with his partner of five-plus seasons Andrew Sendejo, while undrafted free agent Anthony Harris seamlessly filled in behind Sendejo after several seasons of development.
But Harris’s departure for Philadelphia last March forced the Vikings, who were low on cash, to visit the Safety Supermarket to see if there were any good sales.
Their first search for a starting safety in nearly a decade yielded Xavier Woods, the four-year Cowboys veteran who now ranks as the league’s No. 14 safety, per Pro Football Focus, at just a $1.75 million salary.
“He’s been really good and he works really well with Harrison,” said Zimmer, “is very smart, makes quick adjustments and does a nice job when he’s in the back half of the field — middle/back end of the field. He does a nice job of reading the quarterback’s transition and weight transfer and those things. He’s fairly quiet, but on the field, he’s a good communicator.”
That about sums up Woods, who considers himself the quiet type but also a willing communicator and a “smart, intellectual and instinctive” football player.
Drawn to the Vikings
The Vikings seemingly took a lot of gambles this offseason on players who were either coming off down seasons or frowned upon because of their erratic resumes. Woods, coming off a disappointing 2020 in Dallas, was a perfect candidate to rebuild his value in Minnesota in a well-taught scheme with a familiar face on the coaching staff.
You never know how individuals’ paths may end up crossing in the course of a football career. Woods’ third college season at Louisiana Tech overlapped with Karl Scott, a defensive backs coach who would only spend a year with the program before moving on to Texas Tech.
Six years later it ended up being Scott who was a big draw for Woods to join the Vikings. Minnesota hired its new defensive backs coach after Scott’s three-year stint with Alabama, and his first coaching victory was cluing the Vikings in to what Woods could offer thanks to their year together at Louisiana Tech.
“The familiarity of having him and knowing what he brought at that time as a 19-year-old, he’s picking up where he left off,” Scott said during training camp. “Pleasant surprise to the room. Definitely a guy who is mature beyond his age. He’s a wise guy. Understands the game. For a guy who’s been in the system just a couple of months he’s out here communicating like he’s been here as long as Harry’s been here. Definitely a guy we lean on to kind of voice our messages.”
Harrison Smith was another big reason Woods came to Minnesota. It wouldn’t be controversial to say his presence likely helped make Sendejo and Harris millions of dollars over the years, and it could have the same effect on Woods as he re-enters free agency next March.
Scott likened Woods’ comfort as a communicator to Smith’s, which is high praise to be considered Smith’s equal in any facet.
Though Woods scoffs at any comparisons — “Obviously, I would say he's smarter than me,” Woods said of Smith. — there is a clear thread if you listen to Woods’ teammates and coaches speak about his game. Like Smith, Woods uses his brain to give him an advantage before the snap.
“I trust him because he knows what I know,” said Woods, “and he trusts me because he knows I know. So it all equates to trust and we trust each other out on the field.”
‘Alerting’ and ‘anticipating’
Woods credits his intelligence to playing lots and lots of football.
The durable safety played 51 games in his Louisiana Tech career and has started for most of the five seasons of his NFL career — he’ll probably log his 4,000th play sometime in November.
“I've seen a lot of football and I've studied a lot of football,” Woods says. “All four years I had great teachers over the course of those four years that taught me a lot, and I'm still learning today, but I've seen a lot of football. Offenses are always going to be the same, they're going to run the same thing, same schemes, just different ways of dressing it up, and to be able to take what I've learned out there and just apply it to the field it's a reflection of just my experience and just my knowledge of football and studies.”
Woods’ rapport with Smith starts in the film room.
“[He asks] questions on things that may or may not come up,” Smith said. “He’s pretty much gotta cover anything that can happen, so just thinking of scenarios that we need to go over. He’s always really alert with those things.”
That preparation then carries over to the huddle, where he “pre-alerts” Smith of any potential situation, and then Woods excels in the pre-snap alignments, which are often on the safeties’ plate to iron out.
“He’s getting guys lined up in the right place,” said co-defensive coordinator Andre Patterson. “Recognizing splits and what kinds of routes are coming versus coverages, and that's a hard skill to be able to have, so I think having him here has really helped us a lot because a lot of it in the past has been put on Harry, and now you've got another guy back there that's able to help him alert the corners and the backers of what kinds of adjustments we're making based on splits, based on formation, and he's very vocal.”
Patterson’s fellow co-defensive coordinator Adam Zimmer sees it too. Woods is a mitigator. He identifies misalignments, potential hazards, etc., and makes the necessary adjustments.
“He anticipates motions. He anticipates routes,” said Zimmer. “He has kind of this unspoken communication with Harrison where, ‘Hey, you go down left, you go down right.’ They might not even verbally have to say it. They just know where everybody’s going to be, and so I think the anticipation, that comes from film study, that comes from seeing a lot of football plays in his career, and all that stuff helps him.”
Adam Zimmer once pointed to Woods’ 39 out of 50 Wonderlic score as evidence for his book smarts (average is reportedly 20 out of 50). But the real test of Woods’ intelligence is that he’s able to incorporate the book smarts when the “bullets are flying.”
“Sometimes a guy could do great on the Wonderlic,” said Patterson, “and be a great student and sit in here when it's up on the board and spit it out to you, but then all of a sudden when you line up and the bullets are flying for real it just doesn't come out as fast. Some guys just naturally have the ability to be able to do that, and [Woods] is one of those guys.”
Revenge game?
If Woods can become a better player with mastery of scheme, then his play is allowed to suffer when he loses grasp of it.
The 2020 Cowboys season was tough for Woods right out of the chute when he didn’t receive a contract extension that he seemingly deserved, and Dallas’s defense changed under new coordinator Mike Nolan.
After serving as primarily a free safety most of his career, Woods was asked to play in the box more than ever before. That change correlated with a drop in performance as he graded out 45th of 64 qualified safeties, allowed four touchdowns in coverage and missed, by his own admission, too many opportunities to make plays. With the scheme unfamiliar, no longer did his preparation come as easily.
“I just didn't play good. Point blank,” he said, “I just didn't play well any facet of my game. First two games started off well, but then after that I didn't play well at all, so that's the point blank, cutthroat answer.
“Overthinking a lot. Being confused a little bit as far as the scheme-wise, but just me personally, I'm not going to make any excuses, I just didn't play well.”
Woods readily admits that Sunday night’s game carries extra weight for him against a team that he claims “didn’t want me back.”
Minnesota is glad to have him. If the Vikings are forced to search for a new safety any time soon, they know the type of player they want.
“He fits the mold of what we do,” said Adam Zimmer. “Maybe he didn’t fit the mold of how they were playing defense last year or whatever. But he’s done everything we ask him to, he’s a great leader, he’s smart and a great communicator for us.”
Support the businesses that support Purple Insider by clicking below to check out Sotastick’s Minnesota sports inspired merchandise:
