Oakland Raiders safety Charles Woodson will be playing the final game of his legendary NFL career at Arrowhead Stadium against the Kansas City Chiefs. This is where it all got started for him, too, back in Week 1 of the 1998 season when he played his first game as a bright-eyed rookie out of Michigan.
Since playing his final home game last week, the 39-year old veteran has been writing memoirs of his journey leading him up to his last NFL game. Here is an excerpt from Saturday’s entry, via ESPN.com:
“It would be easy to be distracted this week, but there’s a saying I learned a long time ago. It says: ‘You’ve got to keep the main thing the main thing.’ The main thing, for me, is to go out and play the game,” Woodson wrote. “That means you’ve got to keep your routine. You’ve got to do all of the things that got you to this point, and you have to do them the same way. Just because it’s your last game, or last home game, the game itself isn’t going to change so you can’t change. After the season is over, things will change for me as a person, as a man; it will be different because I won’t be an NFL player anymore. But for this game and the last home game a week ago, I still have to play the game.”
In Woodson’s first game at Arrowhead Stadium the Chiefs beat the Raiders by a score of 28-8. Woodson recorded seven tackles and a forced fumble in that game.
This Sunday, the Raiders will be looking to post win No. 8 on the season and send Woodson out with a victorious final hurrah.
Though, the Chiefs, who are playing a critical game that could see them claim the AFC West crown, won’t make things easy for Woodson and Co.
Either way things go on Sunday, it is sure to be an emotion-filed game for the future Hall of Famer and his fans who will have traveled thousands of miles to watch Woodson in action one last time.
Raiders fans show their appreciation for Charles Woodson. pic.twitter.com/Bs5g2zmPHl
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) December 25, 2015
Perhaps Woodson will pull a “Steve Smith” and reconsider his decision to retire and bless the Raiders with one more year. It never hurts for fans to ask for what they want with the hope it might just come true.