Woodson/Harris

[HarveyWallbangers]

Harris, Woodson look good at camp

Cornerbacks Al Harris and Charles Woodson, who were no-shows during the Packers' voluntary offseason workouts, were in uniform and part of the starting defensive unit during team drills.

Both looked to be in good shape and both broke up passes while matched up against wide receivers during one-on-one drills.

The Packers are renting portable lights for night practices at this year's training camp. The 14 banks of lights, which are powered by generators, were turned on at about 7:45 p.m., roughly halfway through practice.

-- Mike Vandermause, sports editor, Green Bay Press-Gazette

[PaCkFan_n_MD]

Defense wins championships, were going to be good this year trust me. :wink:

[Partial]

Hopefully this is one of many awesome days for them

[HarveyWallbangers]

I'd prefer Woodson had a different attitude about OTAs, but until the NFL gets rid of these stupid voluntary/mandatory training camps, there's not much that can be done. I'm sure there are plenty of players who skip them that are just fine. I blame the system as much as anything.

Harris, Woodson join fold
Both cornerbacks miss off-season work
By LORI NICKEL

Green Bay - After a long off-season marked by their absences, cornerbacks Al Harris and Charles Woodson rejoined the rest of their Green Bay teammates Friday night for the first day of training camp, with Harris eager to put contract talk behind him and Woodson convinced he made the right choice to skip voluntary work and practices.

Both missed all of the Packers' voluntary minicamp work in Green Bay, which included a short minicamp in May and a four-week-long June camp implemented by the new coaching staff.

Harris, who said he had attended only mandatory camps the last three summers anyway, had hoped his six-year, $18.635 million deal from September 2004 would be reworked this summer. When it wasn't, he decided not to hold out and cause a fuss.

"Would you like to make more money at your job? OK," Harris said. "I'm here. I love my job, and this will be the last time we talk about this whole thing until it's time to talk about it."

Woodson, the Packers' new $52 million free agent, said he simply thought he could better prepare himself independently for the upcoming season from a physical standpoint, saying there was plenty of practice time in training camp to prepare for the season from a schematic standpoint.

Rather than train here with the team, Woodson worked out in Houston, concentrating mostly on running.

"Sprinting. Distance. 100-degree heat. I challenge you to do it a little bit and you let me know how intense it is," Woodson said. "Working out in that heat, it gets you prepared for anything. I just did a lot of running. I did 'DB' drills, but you're going to get all the drills you need when you come to training camp. I just made sure my body was all right. You saw a lot of guys out there cramping today. I don't have any problems."

Both cornerbacks were immediately installed in the starting defense, Harris on the right and Woodson on the left. Harris' legs cramped up a couple of times but he completed the practice. Secondary coach Kurt Schottenheimer said neither showed any lag from the missed time.

"They're here now and they're both in excellent shape," Schottenheimer said. "I feel good about where they are. Woodson came in here in good playing weight, Al's always in great shape, and we move forward."

When asked how new coach Mike McCarthy felt about Woodson's decision to work out on his own, Woodson said, "I don't think any coach would have been OK with it, but we just, on both of our parts, had to accept what it is."

Woodson and Harris are nine-year veterans, and they both felt strongly that they hadn't fallen out of step with any of their teammates. Even though the coaching staff installed a lot of their plays in the June organized team activities in order to make training camp smoother, neither Woodson nor Harris saw any need to catch up.

"I don't think everybody else is that far ahead of me," Woodson said. "We're not going to put much more in from the first minicamp that I was here. Everything today, I knew it. Today is behind me, no mistakes."

Harris, who has played for a different defensive coordinator every year he has been in Green Bay, wasn't lost on the first day, either, and seemed insulted that it was even conceivable that he missed critical time.

"I already know the scheme," Harris said. "We're running the same schemes as last year, so I'm good. The playbook hasn't changed; they're running the same scheme. So, I left here caught up, you know what I mean?"

Said Woodson: "I understand how everybody feels about me not being there. (Or theories that) I can't lead the team, this and that. It's not true. I felt like what I was doing was getting me in the best possible shape physically to come in here and play this game. I mean, what more can you ask of a player?"

[woodbuck27]

Cliff Christl's observation regarding Charles Woodson after the first day of TC - FRIDAY, July 28, 2006, 10:39 p.m. :


THUMBS DOWN

Forty-million dollar cornerback Charles Woodson looked like just another rank-and-file player or at least someone who had skipped most all of the Packers' offensive workouts. Woodson said he was in tip-top shape, but Brett Favre repeatedly smoked him in seven-on-seven. Rookies Greg Jennings and Chris Francies caught hooks from Favre in front of Woodson. Free agent Ruvell Martin beat Woodson deep by a good step, but couldn't haul the pass in when their feet got tangled. Donald Driver climaxed the second 7-on-7 period by blowing past Woodson on a go pattern for and catching a 75-yard touchdown pass from Favre.