Four-time Pro Bowler Micah Parsons revealed to reporters this week that teammate Colby Wooden has a nickname on the Green Bay Packers defense.
“We call him the General,” Parsons said. “Like, he owns his role. He understands he stops the run. Like, he comes in, like, do what you do.”
A 2023 fourth-round draft pick from Auburn, Wooden’s work in the middle of the Packers’ defensive line elicited the nickname from assistant defensive-line coach Vince Oghobaase.
“Coach VO nicknamed me that,” Wooden said on Thursday. “I don’t mind it. It’s cool. Guys be going with it. General started off, you know, that kind of stuff. But no, it’s good. I don’t mind it. Cool little nickname. …
“He said because the nose is the general of the defense. The nose, everything starts with the nose, like, the run game, the pass, everything starts with the nose. So for me to be the nose, it’s kind of looked at like the general of the defense -- hold it down.”
Viewing Wooden as the general of the Green Bay defense would have seemed odd two months ago. In two seasons with the Packers, Wooden had started one game and made 37 tackles during 589 defensive snaps across 30 games.
But on Aug. 28, Green Bay traded two first-round draft picks and defensive tackle Kenny Clark to the Dallas Cowboys for Parsons. With Clark gone, the Packers needed a new run-stopper.
“My mindset wasn’t to, like, prove people wrong,” Wooden said. “It was to prove the guys upstairs right. Like, they made the right call. Prove myself right that I can do this. It’s my time. God didn’t leave me here. He didn’t leave me here; this is his plan. You feel me? So I just got to go out, execute, and so far, I’ve been doing that. We just got to keep going.”
Wooden has started every game, already played more snaps in seven games in 2025 than he did in the entire 2024 season and reached career highs with 23 tackles and four tackles for loss.
“To me, it’s like opportunity and preparation met,” Wooden said. “Like, I’ve been practicing, been preparing for this. Like, I didn’t know it would be this soon. Like I said, none of us know God’s plan. So for me, it’d be a shame to just spit on this opportunity that I have and not do my best and not give my best at this moment in time. So I just got to keep going. I know I’m doing all right. Cool. But we got so much more football to play and so much more to keep going at. …
“You never know when your time is. Like, you never know. You never know, bro. So just practice. Like, practice like you’re the starter. Like honestly, that’s how I’ve looked at it. Kenny taught me that. Like, you never know when your number’s going to be called.”
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Green Bay defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley described Wooden as a “relentless guy who always has a smile on his face.”
“It’s just how hard he’s worked,” Hafley said on Thursday. “He’s gotten bigger. He’s gotten stronger. He’s getting really good in the run game. And he’s got confidence, and I think that’s so important for all of our players, which is hard nowadays, right? I mean, everybody seems to ride these roller coasters, and he’s just a confident guy now. and his teammates believe in him. He believes in himself. We believe in him. And I think that’s huge. And I think he’s like an energy-giver. I think that’s the best way that I could explain the guy. And like I said, I’m just proud of him. I think he’s going to get better and better as he goes because he’s still a young player who doesn’t have a whole lot of experience. But I’m excited to see what he can do.”
The Green Bay defense has yielded the second-fewest rushing yards in the NFL this season at 552.
“To me, inside is just all about mentality,” Wooden said. “You got to love physicality. You got to love football. You got to love just the whole thing. You got to love being gritty. Like, it’s not a pretty job. We know my name ain’t going to be in the paper. Yeah, I got run stops. Cool. We know it’s not going to be in the paper. But let him run for 200 yards, I guarantee they come: ‘Where’s he at?’ So you got to do your job and take pride in it. And I definitely do. …
“I feel like I played smooth. I definitely want to keep improving, for sure. There’s a lot of stuff I can work on, a lot of stuff I can get better at. But right now, we’re in a good place. We’re winning. That’s our most important thing, so we got to focus on Carolina to go stop their run. We know what they want to do: Come in here and run the ball, and so we got to stop it.”
At 5-1-1, the Packers have the best record in the NFC heading into their game against the 4-4 Panthers at noon CST Sunday at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
“They got two good guys back there -- 30 (Chuba Hubbard) and five (Rico Dowdle),” Wooden said. “Their O-line’s physical, play downhill. We know what they want to do. They want to rush. They want to get to the edge. So for us, we just got to knock it back. And especially after last week, which wasn’t our best week stopping the run, the first half. They have hope, so they’re going to want to come in here and try to do that.”
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