One of the trillion or so reasons we love sports is that history is made just about every day. Some of it’s quirky. Some of it’s cool. Some of it is amazing and some of it is all of the above. If you bought a Charles Woodson rookie card back in 1998, you never would have guessed he’d not only be still playing in 2015 but still intercepting passes thrown by another guy you’d probably have thought would have retired by now.
But it happened. Charles Woodson intercepted Peyton Manning for the first time in their careers.
And then did it again.
That second INT made him, at 39, the oldest player to have a more than one interception in a game since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.
The combined age of Manning and Woodson? 78.
It was Woodson, the versatile Michigan Wolverine, who beat out Manning for the 1997 Heisman Trophy.
While Manning’s rookie cards have been well chronicled, Woodson’s sure Hall of Fame career hasn’t gotten quite as much attention. He began his career in Oakland, landed in Green Bay and helped the Packers win a Super Bowl, then returned to California where most thought he’d play a final, farewell season.
It’s turned into much more than that. Woodson now owns 64 career interceptions, tied with Ed Reed for sixth all-time.
Woodson appeared on about 40 different rookie cards in 1998 but it was so long ago that certified autograph cards were still not being pumped into that many products. His rookie autographs appear only in Bowman with gold and silver versions in addition to the base signature but few come on the marketplace on a regular basis.
Among his most popular unsigned rookie card is the 1998 Upper Deck SP Authentic. Base cards are numbered to 2000 with a die-cut parallel limited to 2000.
Check out Woodson rookie cards on eBay here.
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