Q&A: Get to know Raiders pass game coordinator/defensive backs coach Joe Woods

Apr 14, 2025 at 05:27 PM

Carter Owen

Digital Content Associate

Raiders.com is publishing a series of Q&As with members of the Silver and Black's 2025 coaching staff.

Here is the latest discussion with pass game coordinator/defensive backs coach Joe Woods. Woods joins the Raiders after serving as the defensive coordinator for New Orleans from 2022-23. He brings 21 years of coaching experience in the NFL including one season coaching the Silver and Black's secondary in 2014.

Read through to learn more about Woods' role within the defensive staff, his coaching influences and more.

Q: How has it been being in the facility, meeting the new staff and some of the players?

Woods: It's exciting but hectic at the same time. Whenever you're on a new staff, you're catching up on a lot of things. But with Coach Carroll, it's been great just to see the culture we're trying to build here, the type of players we're looking for. It's been fun. And talking to the guys, I've reached out to all the guys just to get to know them. I'm really excited about this opportunity here.

Q: At your past stops, what have you learned that is helpful in establishing a culture when you get to a new place?

Woods: It's always different, but I think when the leadership comes down from the top, that's the most important thing. With Coach Carroll, it's clear-cut. You know what type of program we're going to run here, our philosophy, his vision, and it makes it easy because we're all trying to live up to those expectations. But I think it always starts from the top down. Once you get in, you're trying to identify what we're trying to do and you're just trying to follow that model.

Q: You've spent a number of years working alongside defensive backs coach Marcus Robertson. What is special about him that allows him to get the most out of his players?

Woods: I think first and foremost, pedigree. He played in the NFL for 12 years. When guys talk to him, they talk to a guy that's been in those shoes. He has different views than I have, and I like that because you don't want to be around a bunch of guys that just agree to agree. Me and him butt heads at times, but I like that because I feel like it creates progress or builds progress in terms of what we're trying to do with different types of ideas.

Q: How have you grown since you were last with the Raiders in 2014?

Woods: It's really just knowledge. I mean, with every team you've been on, with every different type of guy you coach, with every system that you've been in, the game experiences, the adjustments you had to make, your personal interactions and dealings with different players, I just feel like you grow. You get more experience and you know how to handle different situations based on things you've dealt with in the past.

Q: What is it about the job and the coaching profession that makes you want to keep doing it?

Woods: Number one is really just wanting to succeed and be a champion. I think that's a goal everybody has, that drive to always be the last team standing. Then, developing young men. You get guys on the field, and you work to develop them. When you're working on certain skills and you see that improve, that really means a lot to me as a coach. And then for me, just loving the game. I really don't feel like I've worked. I know in coaching you work a lot of hours, but you don't feel like you've truly worked. I've enjoyed it for 33 years now.

Oakland Raiders defensive backs coach Joe Woods on the sidelines before a regular season game in 2014.

Q: Can you describe your role title of pass game coordinator and how it fits in to a defensive staff?

Woods: There's a lot of conversations within the staff in terms of what we're going to do schematically, from Coach Carroll to PG [Patrick Graham] on down. But at the end of the day, I'm going to make sure that it's all in line with the things that we talked about. If there's a question in a certain area that deals with the pass game or a coverage scheme, how I want to put things together, how I want to drill it, the opportunity to present the information to the players, that's really my job just to kind of overall see the passing game, the coordination of it and make sure everybody's on the same path.

Q: In the offseason, when you do have time away from the game, what do you enjoy doing?

Woods: I like to golf, but when you get older, all these old injuries are showing up. (laughter) I haven't golfed in a couple of years. I really have a passion for barbecue, smoking food. I know a couple of guys on the circuit that I've gotten involved with over the years. I've got like 10 grills or smokers at the house. My wife, she allows me to do it. I like fishing. If you have a place right on the lake or you've got a pond, if you go out there in the morning, you're going to see me fishing. A lot of those things are things I can do with my kids.

Q: If you're having the coaching staff over for dinner, what are you putting on the grill? What's your go-to?

Woods: Well, there's three big choices. The easiest thing with party food to feed a lot of people is to do pulled pork, because you get a lot. But the prized thing you want to smoke is probably brisket. Ribs is always a good finger food everybody likes, but you really want to get down with the brisket.

Q: The population in North Vandergrift, Pennsylvania – where you're from – is only a couple hundred people. What was your upbringing like and how did it shape you into the person you are now?

Woods: My mom and dad were blue-collar people. They worked doing different things their whole lives. North Vandergrift – it's actually like the village of North Vandergrift – it's really one of the first, if not the first town that was built for a steel mill. If I stood on my porch at my house, there's a steel mill across the river. I lived right by a river. There's another one on the other side of the river, and there's another one two miles down the road. At the time when my dad was growing up, you were going to graduate high school and go to the steel mill. My grandfather moved to North Vandergrift from South Carolina to work in the steel mill. It's the work ethic I developed growing up there, getting up and cutting grass in the summer, shoveling snow. There's a lot of good people that looked after me. I always felt like all my coaches were almost like my dad away from home.

Q: What do you remember about your first coaching position at Muskingum College and what did you learn there that has helped you throughout your career?

Woods: Well, this is how it all went down. When I got done playing at Illinois State my senior year, it was senior sign-out day, so they clapped all the seniors out. We had to go sign out with the trainers, equipment room and all that. I got done and I was walking down the hallway, and my position coach, John Bowers, said, "Hey man, you ever think about coaching?" And I was like, "Nah." He said, "You want to give it a shot?" I was like, "Sure, why not?" Just like that, that's how it happened. So, my senior year, I was a student assistant in the spring. I was coaching outside linebackers and then after the season was over, the head coach came and said, "Hey, my brother's the head coach at Muskingum. He has a DBs job open." So, I had a chance to go to Muskingum and coach DBs or go to Eureka College, which is in Illinois, and coach running backs. I was like, "Man, I know DBs." So that's how I got to Muskingum. Coaching Division III, it's a part-time job, full-time work. You know what I mean? It's a full-time job with part-time pay. I'll never forget making $187 every two weeks, trying to figure out how to pay for my car and insurance and eat. That's why I don't eat fast food that much, because I lived off of it. They had little coupons for McDonald's, so I was living off McDonald's. But it was a great conference, a lot of work. I made extra money lining a high school football field for football games. Just doing what you love and trying to find ways to survive. It was a great experience.

Q: Who are some of the people that have had the biggest impact on the way you teach and coach?

Woods: My position coach, John Bowers, Coach Jim Heacock, he made me a team leader, gave me that responsibility. When I was at Illinois State, Urban Meyer was a special teams coach, a hard ass. He taught me about complacency, because no matter what you did, he always wanted better. When I was at Grand Valley State with Brian Kelly, just a versatile coach. He coached everything on offense, defense, just that versatility to know football. When I was at Hofstra, Dan Quinn was a coordinator, Raheem Morris was my student assistant defensive backs coach. What I learned from those guys – we were against the world, we're independent, we'll play anybody, anywhere, anytime type of atmosphere. … When I got in the NFL, I would say that the biggest guy that has affected me the most in terms of how I coach as a DB, how I prepare, the way I look at tape, the way I handle the room is Mike Tomlin. I was with him when that was my first NFL job. It's the guys I've been around. You learn a little bit from each guy. And along the way, you learn what you like and what's good and what you don't like and what's not good. You kind of come up with your own philosophy and your own way of how you're going to coach.

Read more Q&As:

Wide receivers coach Chris Beatty

Defensive backs coach Marcus Robertson

Running backs coach Deland McCullough

Defensive line coach/run game coordinator Rob Leonard

Quarterbacks coach Greg Olson

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Las Vegas Raiders linebacker Tommy Eichenberg (45) at a workout during phase one of the offseason program at Intermountain Health Performance Center.