Time for Green to say goodbye

Washington cornerback to play final game in 20-year career Sunday against Dallas

? Darrell Green is leaving. Don’t try to catch him.

“I don’t think anybody could run me down,” the Washington Redskins’ cornerback said Thursday. “There may be somebody in the world I don’t know that could beat me, but I don’t think anybody could run me down the way I used to run other players down.”

It was a rare moment of pride from the 42-year-old Green, who reminisced about a 20-year career that comes to an end Sunday when the Redskins play host to Dallas.

The conversation included the usual references to his kids, the Bible and role models, and some fleeting glances of the emotions to come.

“I haven’t had butterflies in my stomach in eight or 10 years,” Green said. “I imagine Sunday I’m going to have butterflies. I anticipate it with a lot of joy.”

Green is the last holdover from the Super Bowl years, the Joe Gibbs era. He played his first game on Sept. 5, 1983 — during Ronald Reagan’s first term. He holds the NFL record for most seasons with one team and is the oldest player ever to play cornerback in the league. He went to seven Pro Bowls, including one at age 37. Not bad for a 5-foot-9 player taken as the final pick in the first round of the 1983 draft.

Green never tried to shop himself in free agency. He preached humility, once apologizing for a mild touchdown celebration. He embraced the notion that players should be role models and used his celebrity to establish a series of inner-city learning centers.

“I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I go home at night. I’m very conscientious of that,” Green said. “I don’t think a lot of players are. When they chant my name ‘Darrell, Darrell,’ I don’t take the chant home with me. It’s all about perspective.”

He confesses that he’s departed from that mindset recently. He’s taken photos with former rival players at every stadium this season and has let himself soak up the adulation of the home crowd.

He’s had more time to enjoy the crowd because he hasn’t played much lately, his one big disappointment. He will be with the starters for at least one play Sunday following a pre-game ceremony, but he hasn’t been a regular on defense since assistant coach Marvin Lewis gave Green’s nickel-back duties to rookie Rashad Bauman at Dallas on Thanksgiving Day.

“For the first time in my career I did not touch the field on defense. It really hurt,” Green said. “The thing that hurt the most was that I wasn’t aware of it. He never really officially told me, even though I asked him a couple of times, ‘Hey are we making the switch? Just tell me.’ He never did. I struggled with that a lot.

“Fortunately, that was four or five games ago. … I leave with zero regrets, no hard feelings. It’s been a joyous career — including this year.”

This is the only season that Green hasn’t intercepted a pass, so he’d like one more to extend his NFL-record streak to 20 years.

However, Green points out that a cornerback’s best years have virtually no highlights.

“I was the Maytag man before anybody else was,” Green said. “When you’ve reached the pinnacle of your position, where teams don’t really challenge you. You didn’t mention me. I didn’t mention myself. That was the most exciting time of the my career.”

Green finally lost his starting job in 2000, when the Redskins signed Deion Sanders for a year. Rookie Fred Smoot beat out Green last year, putting him at nickel until Bauman passed him.

Green initially announced that last year would be his last, but a rigorous training camp, an 0-5 start and a sagging economy following Sept. 11 made it difficult to connect his departure with publicity for his foundation. So he came back for one more year, and this time it feels right.