Image courtesy of Packers.com

The most influential defensive player on the Packers since Reggie White was released today. This is surely the end of an era, and a damn good one at that. Since joining the Packers in 2006, Chuck has intercepted 38 passes, returning 9 of them for touchdowns. He had a career year in 2009, winning NFL Defensive Player of the Year. becoming the second player in franchise history (Reggie White) to win such award.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that this wasn’t a smart move. Cap space is tight and the Packers will be faced with resigned several big name players over the next two years, including Rodgers and Matthews. Woodson’s play has also been in decline every since the Super Bowl. He still has a knack for the ball and is a decent tackler, but his cover skills are lacking.

Moving him to safety was supposed to help, eliminating the need to him to be super speedy keeping up with young receivers, and allowing him to move around to different parts of the field. It’s hard to say if this really helped or not. He spent a good chunk of the season on the sidelines with a broken collar bone and the other chunk of the season he just felt absent.

This isn’t supposed to be a negative article, so let’s disregard the current goings on and remember the good times. Charles was an absolute force to be reckoned with. If the ball was thrown in his vicinity, you could bet he had a pretty good shot and getting his hands on it.  Even if the ball wasn’t thrown his way, he’d quickly make his way to the receiver and do his best to punch the ball out, doing so successfully 15 times in his Green Bay tenure.

It’s hard to imaging a better leader than Chuck. We can’t forget his “one” speech after the NFC Championship game, and I know we only imagine what was said during half time of the Super Bowl, but we do know he had tears in his eyes and got his team ready to bring the Lombardi trophy home.

He wasn’t just a great leader on the field, but off the field as well. Donating 2 million dollars to the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Michigan in 2009 was just one of his charitable donations. He never needed to make it known, he just wanted to make a difference.

I’ll leave you with some highlights of his 2009 DPOY season, and a poll. Obviously you all should vote, but we’d love to hear some specific memories you have of Chuck. Maybe you met him in person at one time and want to share that, or maybe a specific play comes to mind. Whatever it is, we’d love to hear!

We’ll miss you Chuck!