Insider: Rookie Colts TE Jelani Woods has the maturity, motivation to match this moment

INDIANAPOLIS — Jelani Woods has an easy smile, an affable personality, the wide-eyed elation of a rookie finally realizing his dream.

But he is not living a charmed life.

This was always the destination.

From growing up on the southeast side of Atlanta, through a position change at Oklahoma State and a risky graduate transfer to Virginia, Woods has made every decision with the NFL in mind.

With his family in mind.

“Everything I went through, the adversity I faced my whole life, that pretty much sticks in the back of my head,” Woods said. “Trying to be the backbone of my family.”

'We finally got him to stop wearing the helmet all the time'

Woods is the youngest of three boys, born into a tight-knit, sports-obsessed family in Ellenwood, Ga. that spent a lot of its precious free time going up to Atlanta to watch the Falcons (and now Colts quarterback Matt Ryan), both at training camp and in the Georgia Dome.

When he was five or six, Woods would walk around the house in shoulder pads and football pants, putting up a royal fit if his parents, Greg and Shaheerah, tried to get him to put on normal clothes.

“We finally got him to stop wearing the helmet all the time,” Greg said. “We’d try to get him to take the shoulder pads off, but he’d be screaming.”

Woods grew up quickly.

He had to.

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As close as the family was, Greg and Shaheerah both worked long hours, Shaheerah on the business side of Children’s Healthcare Atlanta, Greg in refrigeration and air for Kroger. Because of his job, Greg was often on the road.

Woods and the middle brother, Jaleel, had to help out around the house, and with their oldest brother, Javaric.

Javaric is moderately intellectually disabled. According to Greg, his oldest son needs help with daily activities like getting dressed, getting meals and taking showers.

“He’s pretty much not able to take care of himself, so the whole family had to pitch in, especially since my parents worked all the time,” Woods said. “That left me in charge at times in middle school, high school.”

By their own admission, the Woods family did not have unlimited resources, but Greg and Shaheerah made sure their sons could focus on sports, on pursuing their dreams of earning a college scholarship. Their middle son, Jaleel, does not have his younger brother’s 6-7 frame, but he had the athleticism.

A talent on the baseball and football fields, Jaleel seemed to be on the same track as his brother until an unusual revelation contributed to the end of his athletic career.

When Jaleel was young, he’d often walk off the field after games looking a little uncomfortable, scratching at his arms; but it was never bad enough that it became an issue, not until a game in high school.

Jaleel felt sick on the sideline, started breaking out. By the time he got in the family car, he had hives all over his body.

“He was allergic,” Greg said. “It was a pesticide, something they used on the grass.”

A combination of the allergy, and a loss of motivation ended Jaleel’s athletic career.

That left the youngest son, the one who kept growing like an oak tree.

“I was talking about this with my brother the other day,” Greg said. “My brother’s 6-1, I’m 6-2. My wife’s 5-9. … It has to be from somebody else down the line.”

Because of that height, Woods initially thought he’d pursue basketball — his height made him a dominant force on the court growing up and he played all the way through high school.

But the attention Woods wanted started coming his way on the football field. Back then, Woods was a massive quarterback, a three-star recruit accurate enough to complete more than 60% of his throws as a three-year starter and lead Cedar Grove to the first state championship in the school’s history.

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Woods knew he wanted to play at the next level, and he learned an important lesson from his high school coach, Jimmy Smith, who is now the running backs coach at Arkansas.

Be flexible.

There might be one goal but there is more than one way to get there.

“My high school coach, he kind of wanted me to do both, be both pro-style and dual-threat at the same, tried to maneuver (to get as many offers as possible),” Woods said. “I was a quarterback who could play in any system.”

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A talented high school recruit might choose a college destination for any one of a dozen reasons.

A program’s prestige. A relationship with an assistant coach. A desire to stay close to home, or alternately, a desire to get away from home and see a little more of the world.

Woods chose Oklahoma State for a reason that sounds a lot more like something from NFL free agency.

“The offensive scheme,” Woods said. “They threw the ball a lot, that’s kind of how I liked it. Their offense reminded me of my high school offense.”

Woods spent most of his redshirt season in Stillwater as a quarterback on the scout team, wondering when he’d get his chance to play. Before the Cowboys’ final game of the regular season, the Bedlam Series against Oklahoma, the coaches came to Woods with a request.

The Cowboys needed somebody to play Sooners tight end Mark Andrews — now a star with the Baltimore Ravens — in practice.

Woods had the size-speed combination they needed.

Then he went out and torched Oklahoma State’s defense in practice all week long, turning the wheels in the coaching staff’s mind. Buried on the depth chart at quarterback, Woods might be able to help the Cowboys at a different spot.

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They asked him to move to tight end.

He’d always been a quarterback. Handed the same situation, a lot of players would have transferred, tried to find a school where they could play the game’s most important position.

But Woods had his eyes on the future.

“The proposition they gave me was enticing,” Woods said. “They were like, ‘If you want to make like $10 million in two years, we think you’ll be really good at tight end, and we’ll really use you.' That kind of buzzes in your head a little bit.”

The Oklahoma State coaches ended up being right though Woods had to leave Stillwater to make good on everything they promised.

'This kid is way motivated to become something'

Three years after making the switch to tight end, Woods had plenty of playing time under his belt, an extensive tutorial as a blocker and a degree in management.

A chance to catch passes was missing. An afterthought in Oklahoma State’s passing game, Woods had caught only 31 passes in three seasons. At 6-7, 260 pounds and as fast as some wide receivers, Woods knew he had the physical tools to make a run at the NFL.

But he needed the tape to show NFL teams he could be a weapon as a receiver.

“That was the idea going into it,” Woods said. “I knew, going to the next level, I had to show a little bit of an ability to catch the ball at a high level.”

Woods dove into the tape again.

When he watched the film of Virginia’s 2020 season, he saw former Cavaliers tight end Tony Poljan catch 38 passes and six touchdowns, and Virginia coach Robert Anae was telling Woods that the team wanted to expand the tight end’s role in the passing game.

Woods believed he could be even better than Poljan.

“When he showed up, it was apparent that there was an internal motivation that’s different from the other guys sitting there,” Anae said. “It was clear to us: This kid is way motivated to become something.”

From the moment he arrived on Virginia’s campus, Woods did everything right. The study, the strength and conditioning, the way he’d try to make the most of every play and every tip the coaches gave him, acting every bit like a mature, driven player who’d learned how to prepare like a professional over his years in college.

Except that the motivation the Cavaliers saw in Woods runs deeper than his age.

“My experience is age is not a qualifier for that,” Anae said. “In fact, a lot of times at that age, you’ve already demonstrated who you are by that point in your career. … Day 1, we had somebody who’s very, very special.”

Woods exceeded his three years totals at Oklahoma State in his only season at Virginia, making 44 catches for 598 yards and 8 touchdowns.

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4.61 seconds

The night before Woods ran the 40-yard dash at the NFL scouting combine, Steve Caric saw something special in the way Woods approaches big moments.

Caric, Woods’s agent, has been in Indianapolis for a lot of 40-yard dashes. Nerves are common, almost expected.

Woods, on the other hand, had a deep sense of confidence, an unshakeable belief that he was going to turn people’s heads the next day.

Woods tore through the 40-yard dash in a blistering 4.61 seconds, a remarkable time for a man who measured 6-7, 259 pounds, sending himself flying up draft boards in conjunction with his performance at the East-West Shrine Game.

Caric expected the physical numbers. An experienced agent who counts Zach Ertz, Dalton Schultz and Austin Hooper among his clients, Caric could tell Woods was a special kind of athlete for the position.

The self-confidence Woods showed was a revelation.

“It’s something I wish they all had,” Caric said.

Confidence is critical in the NFL. Caric has seen too many players shaken by a loss of confidence, crippled by doubt.

Woods has always had it, a sense of expectation that he’s going to make it at this level.

The Colts used a third-round pick on him, hoping to land the downfield threat at tight end that head coach Frank Reich has long coveted but he got off to a slow start in training camp. His confidence, however, wasn’t shaken. Woods talks to his dad almost every day, and Greg admits that his son talked about how hard it was to absorb everything the Colts needed him to do, but Woods always believed he’d get it eventually.

He was putting in the work. When he got back to the room he shared with fellow tight end Drew Ogletree, the two rookies spent the time going through the entire practice script for the next day, trying to make sure they were as prepared as possible.

Woods initially fell behind Ogletree on the depth chart.

His confidence, still, remained undaunted, supported by a family that had already seen Woods achieve a dream that could have gone wrong at several different points in his road to the NFL.

“They know,” Woods said. “It might start slow. That doesn’t matter. I’m always going to overcome.”

'He’s here to prove everybody wrong'

The Woods family had just gotten home from church on Sunday, settling into their seats, when the ball slipped through Kansas City punt returner Skyy Moore’s hands.

Greg saw his son go into the game.

The excitement started to build. A diehard Falcons fan, Greg and his sons had spent the last decade and a half watching Matt Ryan play, and he knew the Colts’ new starting quarterback likes to look for the tight end in the end zone.

When Woods made his first catch, a 1-yard touchdown in the back of the end zone, the Woods family exploded.

“I jumped so far out of my chair,” Greg said. “I had people calling me, texting me, I was talking to my son, it was just unbelievable. My son just caught his first NFL touchdown, and it came from Matt Ryan?”

Ogletree went crazy from his spot in the press box.

The rookie knows the playbook. When he saw his roommate go into the game, Ogletree immediately predicted Woods was going to score a touchdown, and he knew how much it meant to Woods, why the rookie tight end exploded in joy.

“Honestly, he’s here to prove everybody wrong, and also, the people in his corner, to prove everybody right,” Ogletree said. “’Hey, I’m supposed to be here. This is what I’m supposed to be doing.’”

Woods made an even bigger catch later, beating Kansas City safety Juan Thornhill across the end zone on a crossing route for the game-winning touchdown catch with 24 seconds left. A jubilant Reich exploded in the locker room, excited about his rookie tight end.

“Welcome to the NFL, Jelani Woods!” Reich said.

He’s always believed he’d be here.

Right where he always planned to be.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts: Rookie Jelani Woods has the motivation to match this moment