Joker Phillips almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing, so he called in his wife, Leslie, to check it too.
Together, they gazed at their television set, watching the linebacker in the white No. 59 jersey dash around the field at Cleveland Browns Stadium last month. That Bronco, rookie linebacker Wesley Woodyard, played with such fury and unbridled enthusiasm that it made Leslie Phillips cry.
That was their “baby Wesley” — the player who more than four years earlier Joker Phillips recruited to the University of Kentucky. Now here Woodyard was, six months removed from going undrafted, making his first NFL start on national television.
“Just watching him fly around and do the same things he had done here, it brought tears to her eyes,” Phillips said. “He is one of our all-time favorite kids we’ve been around. It’s not just us, it’s everyone who is a part of this program. Ask anyone, ‘Who is your all-time favorite?’ — and Wesley Woodyard would be one of the guys they’d mention.”
Phillips, Kentucky’s offensive coordinator, said it’s only a matter of time before Denver fans feel the same way about Woodyard.
“You leave Wesley Woodyard at linebacker long enough and he’ll be one of the best in league, I’ll tell you that right now,” Phillips said.
Woodyard has made an immediate and measurable impact in his short time in Denver, playing so well in replacing D.J. Williams at weakside linebacker that coaches are trying to figure out a way to keep Woodyard on the field now that Williams is nearly recovered from a knee injury that kept him out of the past five games.
That an undrafted rookie could have such a quick effect is rare, yet no one who saw Woodyard grow up is surprised.
Woodyard has been proving people wrong for years.
Rebuffed by recruiters
First it was the recruiters from all of the Southeastern Conference schools but Kentucky, who didn’t offer a scholarship to a player who was Georgia’s defensive player of the year and led his high school team to a state championship.
“There weren’t a whole lot of people after him,” said Steve Pardue, Woodyard’s coach at LaGrange (Ga.) High. “But I told Joker, ‘This is going to be a good player.’ ”
Sure enough, by the time he left Kentucky, Woodyard had twice been selected as a first-team all-SEC linebacker, was the league’s leading tackler over his final two seasons and led the Wildcats to bowl-game victories in 2006 and 2007.
“Wesley Woodyard was the one guy that changed the way we play defense,” Phillips said. “He changed the whole attitude of our program. That was his battle cry the whole time he was here. He wanted respect in this program and definitely was the leader in getting that kind of respect into this program.”
It was for those reasons that Woodyard’s Kentucky coaches and teammates were so surprised when all 32 NFL teams passed on Woodyard in last spring’s draft, perhaps because at 6-feet-1 and 219 pounds — his measurements at the combine — he was deemed too small to play at the next level.
“That was really hard for him,” said Keenan Burton, a wide receiver who was Woodyard’s teammate and fraternity brother at Kentucky and who was drafted in the fourth round by St. Louis. “But he took it like, ‘This is God trying to humble me. From this day forward, I’m going to outwork everybody.’ ”
Woodyard showed up in Denver last spring as a free agent, and the first impression he made was more of a jokester than a playmaker.
Woodyard, notorious for his impressions of his college coaches, started imitating teammates and coaches at Broncos camp, too. At a rookie skit show, he dressed up as Dragonfly Jones, the over-the-top karate instructor character from the 1990s sitcom “Martin.”
“He was probably the star of that stuff before he became a guy that was making plays out on the field,” defensive coordinator Bob Slowik said.
That started to change after Woodyard led the team with eight solo tackles in the team’s preseason opener at Houston.
“The minute he stepped on the field in a game, I don’t want to say it was like night and day, but it was quite a bit different than we would have expected from him in practice,” Slowik said. “It’s not that he didn’t work hard in practice, but he really worked hard in games.”
Woodyard finished the preseason by recording six tackles in the finale at Arizona and spent the next day anxiously waiting the phone call from team headquarters that would either instruct him to bring in his playbook and clean out his locker or invite him to a celebration at coach Mike Shana-han’s house.
“I told him from Day One he didn’t have anything to worry about,” said rookie Jack Williams, Woodyard’s roommate during training camp. “I had to keep his confidence up. When that call came, I was the first person to say ‘I told you so.’ ”
Winning over teammates
Woodyard quickly won over his veteran teammates, as well. He said Williams and middle linebacker Nate Webster have treated him like a little brother, and Williams has been particularly helpful as Woodyard was thrust into the starting lineup. Williams sat with Woodyard in meetings and stayed with him for extra film sessions, and on game days, Williams was the first one to give Woodyard pointers.
“They really built my confidence,” Woodyard said of Williams and Webster. “I came in looking like a guy that was like ‘Hey, I might not make the team, but I’m going to give it my all,’ and from Day One, they saw something in me and they never let me get down on myself.”
Woodyard has made at least eight total tackles in each of his five starts in place of Williams and had a season-high 13 against the Jets two weeks ago.
Williams is likely to be back in the starting lineup Sunday at Carolina, meaning that Woodyard’s primary job will once again be on special teams.
“I’m going to continue to be a playmaker no matter if it’s on defense or special teams,” Woodyard said. “I think my teammates are looking to me to be the same guy that I was when D.J. was here. I’m just going to be the same guy, just flying around and having fun.”
Lindsay H. Jones: 303-954-1262 or ljones@denverpost.com
What’s the big deal about size?
Plenty of scouts considered Wesley Woodyard too small for the NFL. But even at 6-feet-1 and 230 pounds, he has inches and pounds on five of the greatest undersized linebackers in NFL history.
Sam Mills, Saints, Panthers
5-foot-9, 225 pounds; made five Pro Bowls and started every game in the Panthers’ first three seasons.
Tom Jackson, Denver
5-11, 220; the Broncos’ best undersized LB, he made three Pro Bowls and was a leader of Denver’s 1977 season Super Bowl team.
Mike Singletary, Chicago
6-0, 230; a 10-time Pro Bowler who was twice selected the NFL’s defensive player of the year; inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1998.
Nick Buoniconti, Pats, Dolphins
5-11, 220; undrafted, he went on to play in three Super Bowls and was a defensive leader for the undefeated 1972 Dolphins team.
Zach Thomas, Dolphins, Cowboys
5-11, 242; made at least 100 tackles in each of his first 10 seasons and has been selected to seven Pro Bowls. Lindsay H. Jones, The Denver Post
