Woodley is content to let others get glory

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Flash back to the Super Bowl, and it may have seemed that the Steelers secured their sixth NFL championship when Santonio Holmes tiptoed along the sideline to catch Ben Roethlisberger’s last-minute touchdown pass, a dramatic ending to a score-or-lose Pittsburgh drive.

They hadn’t. Not then.

There was one more pivotal play to go — LaMarr Woodley’s sack of Arizona’s Kurt Warner that resulted in a fumble the Steelers recovered, allowing them to run out the clock.

The Woodley sack hasn’t replayed nearly as many times over the last seven months as Holmes’ catch, not that Woodley minds. All season, it seemed, he was repeatedly upstaged by someone on his own team.

Woodley had six sacks in three playoff games, yet it was James Harrison’s record 100-yard interception return touchdown that likely will be remembered as long as the Super Bowl is played.

Woodley also would have led most teams with his 111‚Ñ2 sacks, yet it was Harrison who won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year award by making 16.

“Sometimes when it’s you that’s not getting it, it’s somebody else out there who’s getting sacks,” Woodley said.

While Woodley hasn’t quite reached the national recognition level of Harrison or safety Troy Polamalu, he has needed just two NFL seasons — only one as a starter — to become one of the league’s best outside linebackers.

Woodley was a part-timer in 2007, yet only three other current-day NFL linebackers (Shawne Merriman, Terrell Suggs and DeMarcus Ware) had more sacks in their first two seasons than Woodley’s 151‚Ñ2. The Bears’ Brian Urlacher, for example, probably is a better-known player than Woodley, yet he had fewer sacks (14) in more games (32, to Woodley’s 28).

The 6-foot-2, 265-pound Woodley had two sacks in the Steelers’ only playoff game during the 2007 season. He started last season by getting 91‚Ñ2 sacks in his first eight games.

Woodley slowed during the second half, when he missed a game to injury and had two sacks in seven games, and he began hearing that he was hitting the proverbial end-of-season wall. Because the NFL season is about 25 percent longer than any college season they played, many younger starters tend to slow up near the end of the four-month regular season grind.

“That hitting the wall stuff? That’s kind of funny to me,” Woodley said. “I didn’t hit a wall.”

As opposing offenses began to realize that he was a player “you might have to worry about a bit,” as Woodley said, he didn’t see as many open pass rushing lanes to the quarterback. But while his statistics declined, the Steelers still went 6-1 in their last seven games.

Woodley’s production picked up again in the playoffs, when he became the first player to have multiple sacks in each of his first four postseason games. Counting the playoffs, he finished with 171‚Ñ2 sacks in 18 games.

“That’s one reason our defense is good, there are so many big-time players who can make big plays in big games,” Woodley said.