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Darren Woodson, one of the most physical and instinctive safeties of the 1990s sat down on The Pivot Podcast, and the conversation quickly shifted from football history to football folklore, when he was asked about his first true glimpses of Deion Sanders during an early Cowboys training camp.
When the current Colorado head coach, fresh off winning Defensive Player of the Year with the San Francisco 49ers in 1994, landed in Dallas in 1995 and delivered another Super Bowl win in that very first Cowboys season, expectations were already sky-high.
But credibility in Dallas had to be earned between the hash marks, which is why one-on-one drills became the stage for Sanders’ instant takeover.
“I remember the first time he practiced with us. We were out at practice, we were two-time Super Bowl Champs, right?” said Woodson on the podcast. “We were doing one-on-ones. We all had to do one-on-ones. Safeties had to do one-on-ones. Corner and all. So we were all on one side, you know how this works. You have one side going, the other side going.”
Woodson reminded that the Cowboys had walked into that period as a franchise operating at its absolute peak. They were the two-time defending Super Bowl winners, stocked with All-Pros. He then explained that even Sanders, a player already known for elite confidence and flair, wasn’t immune to getting tested.
“He was on the one side. He got beat on a quick out route, during one-on-ones,” Woodson added. “The next one came up, he told all the other five dudes, ‘You all go on that side, I’m going to shut this s**t down.’ He never cursed though, he said, ‘I’m going to shut this down on this side.’ I was on this side with him, he said, ‘you ain’t getting no reps. If you want reps you go over there.’ Everybody walked on the other side. He took every rep. He just worked. He was working. He pressed them, he played off, he did everything. He was knocking balls, intercept the ball. He’d intercept the ball he’d throw it back to the quarterback. And he was telling the receivers, ‘come on back out here and get blessed.’”
The anecdote carried a deeper subtext — even among champions, an alpha personality can shift the room in seconds. Woodson pointed out that this wasn’t a rebuilding roster or a young team looking for direction.
The Cowboys’ current teams may not mirror those rosters, but their blueprint remains similar in that teams are built on belief, reinforced through repetition, and carried by those who refuse to accept defeat quietly.
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