There has been a lot of fuss over the past few days and since the season ended about LaMarr Woodley’s conditioning. Ryan Clark came to Woodley’s aide when an unnamed player on the team called him out for an “awful” 2012 season. Clark also stated that Woodley has already began his off-season training program even though many players have yet to do so.
Clark invited Woodley to workout with him in Arizona at Performance Enhancement Professionals. Clark has trained with PEP for multiple years and was glad that Woodley agreed to train with them this off-season. He started working out last Monday and will continue to train there throughout the off-season. This is according to an interview Ryan Clark did with Dave Dameshek on the “Dave Dameshek Football Program” listen to the full interview here (talk of LaMarr Woodley’s training starts around minute 23).
Through the first half of the 2011 season Woodley had been a dominant pass rusher at outside linebacker for the Steelers. If he hasn’t injured his hamstring in 2011 he may have won the defensive player award and would be regarded much higher by Steelers fans. However, after a second straight season plagued by injuries he has become one of the biggest scapegoats for the Steelers 8-8 season. Many fans have even stated that the hope the Steelers cut him this off-season.
There is no question that the Steelers will not be cutting Woodley this off-season. He is still on of the best defenders on the team when healthy and if he can get past his hamstring troubles he should be able to return to form and return to being the quarterback nightmare that he was for his first four and a half seasons.
Both Clark and 2008 defensive player of the year James Harrison have trained with PEP and hopefully Woodley will have similar results. Clark signed with the Steelers as a free agent in 2006 and has remained very healthy during his Steelers career. Since 2007 Clark has only missed two games that were not missed due to his sickle cell trait issues in Denver.
If Woodley can play at a similarly consistent rate and at a high level which would come with perfect health he should get everyone off his back. With James Harrison a likely candidate to be a cap casualty cut this off-season the Steelers will need Woodley back in full force in 2013.
The best thing about this is knowing that if Woodley can put his injuries behind him and get into the best shape of his life this off-season he has the ability to be one of the best defenders in the NFL. As Steelers fans we will just have to sit back and hope that is what happens in 2013. If it does all those people begging for the Steelers to cut him now will look even more foolish.
