Charlie Neibergall / Associated Press
Vegas Vipers coach Rod Woodson speaks at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis on March 1, 2020.
Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Legendary NFL defensive back Rod Woodson moved to Las Vegas three years ago thinking his seven-year run coaching professional football had ended.
That all changed late last year when he got a call from several executives from the reformed XFL. They presented Woodson, who only ever worked as an assistant in the NFL, with a chance to become a head coach for the first time.
“It was an easy answer for me—yes,” Woodson tells the Weekly. “Any time you coach, whether it’s little league or whatever, you want to be that head guy, so it was really a neat situation, great opportunity for me to put my own staff together and lead a bunch of men to try to win a championship.”
Woodson has been hard at work ever since, preparing for the upcoming XFL season, scheduled to start Feb. 18, 2023 — six days after the Super Bowl. The eight-team league will hold its inaugural draft in November, and it plans to announce team names, logos and uniforms ahead of that event.
Vegas Vipers is heavily rumored to be the name of the new local team, but Woodson says he hasn’t been given “the green light” to confirm that. He also says he isn’t privy to what the team’s home venue will be, though a partnership with the NFL means the team could potentially use Allegiant Stadium.
Las Vegas, an original XFL city in 2001, wasn’t part of the league’s 2020 relaunch. That ended before finishing a season, with the XFL folding when the pandemic struck in the middle of its season. A new investment group, led by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, then purchased the entity from the WWE for $15 million with sights set on a third incarnation.
The Weekly chatted with Woodson about The Rock, why this time will be different and more.
The XFL announced the teams and coaches before revealing who would coach where. Did you only want to coach the Vegas franchise? Oh yeah, I don’t want to coach anywhere else. It’s a great opportunity for me to stay close to home and build the modern-day XFL fan base back. It was great years ago, in the 2000s, when they were with the Outlaws, so coming back here with the new team, it’s going to be fun to build that fanbase up where I live.
A lot of the coaches in the league were peers in the NFL, playing against one another at the same time. Do you have any particular friends among the group and therefore friendly rivalries? Oh yeah, I’ve got a rivalry with [San Antonio coach] Hines Ward. He hit me in the side of the head when I was playing. … I know I can’t technically hit him while he’s on the sideline, but I’ll get one of my players to take him out. I’m just kidding (laughs). I’ve known [Houston coach] Wade Phillips for a long time and played against some of his teams, same with [Seattle coach] Jim Haslett. You love having these rivalries. We’ve talked about being together already and about the times we’ve had on the field, and now we’re making new memories.
What do you remember most about the XFL’s original run? It was a great opportunity for those players who needed another year or two to develop mentally or physically, and we want to be the same thing. We saw that the first time: The players who leave here and show their wares have a great opportunity to make an NFL roster. That’s an end goal—to be the feeder league. Hopefully the XFL is like the G-League for basketball. Maybe in a year or so, we can get some of those college-transfer portal guys and feed them to the NFL Draft. If we can do that, then we’re doing our part to promote and make these guys better football players.
The XFL has already announced a partnership with the NFL, something most of these alternative leagues have never acquired. How important is that? Hopefully it’ll keep growing. It’s a petri dish partnership right now, where some of the rules they want to consider implementing in a couple years, we’re doing now for everybody, along with some of the equipment and things of that nature. But I hope the league sees the value in having players play. Being on an NFL practice squad is great, but if you’re not on the field, it’s hard to hone your skills. So hopefully it grows, and the NFL sees the value in helping the XFL in some capacity with players and engagement, so we can emerge together and put a better product on the field for everybody.
What’s it been like working with The Rock? He’s my BFF now (laughs). No, but he’s a great man who has accomplished so many things in his industry. He’s a rock star, but when he’s around us, he’s just a normal guy. His first love was football, and he didn’t get a shot at football professionally like these guys will. But I think his backup career has gone pretty well.
How much input did you have on the team name, logo and uniforms? My only request is, we need black somewhere in the uniform.
Is that a tie-in with the Raiders since you’re sharing Las Vegas with them? No, my favorite color has been midnight black since I was a little kid. All my cars are black, outside of my last truck. It’s something I’ve always liked, from clothing to shoes to cars.
Has there been any progress on where you’re going to play in town? That’s also above my pay grade. If they put AstroTurf on a concrete block somewhere in the middle of the 215, we’ll play on it.
This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.
