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Charles Woodson chooses Oakland, signs one-year deal with Raiders

No deal for Denver. Charles Woodson signs with Oakland a week after visiting the Broncos.

Jonathan Daniel

Well, no one said Champ Bailey was a prognosticator.

Hours after the cornerback told Denver radio there was "no freaking way" free agent safety Charles Woodson would sign with the Oakland Raiders over the Denver Broncos, Woodson did exactly that.

Woodson reportedly signed a one-year deal worth well over the veteran minimum. The incentive-laden, $4.3 million deal comes with a $1.8 million base salary that includes a $700,000 signing bonus, ESPN reports.

The Broncos reportedly offered Woodson a one-year deal with $3.7 million in reachable incentives. The offer was open, even as Woodson scheduled his visit to Oakland today.

Woodson would have been a perfect fit as a strong safety in pass coverage for the Broncos, a potential solution to the Broncos' annual problem defending the league's elite tight ends. Signing Woodson would have added another veteran leader to Denver's secondary. It would have added a playmaker.

Instead, Woodson's decision reunites him with the team and city that drafted him, where he's enormously popular to this day. In fact, a few hundred insane asylum escapees Raiders fans even gathered outside Oakland headquarters to greet Woodson during his visit, a movement organized in part by SB Nation sister site Silver and Black Pride.

Beside money and fan adoration, business may have played a factor in Woodson's decision. Signing with Oakland brings him closer to his winery in Napa Valley.

But let's be honest - it brings him farther from his next Super Bowl ring. And a player who makes that kind of decision -- one about the money, and where his agent reportedly doesn't inform the Broncos that his client will be playing elsewhere -- doesn't belong on the Denver Broncos anyway.

Updated 9:35 p.m.