Wood changed his position to safety in his rookie year, and played for the Packers from 1960 to 1971, winning five NFL championships.

[4] He transferred to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in 1957 and played for the Trojans under first-year head coach Don Clark.

[6] Wood was not selected in the 1960 NFL draft, and wrote a letter to head coach Vince Lombardi to request a tryout;[7] the Packers signed him as a rookie free agent in 1960.

He was ejected for bumping back judge Tom Kelleher while protesting a call during the third quarter of the 1962 NFL Championship Game vs. the New York Giants Wood was the starting free safety for the Packers in Super Bowl I against the Kansas City Chiefs and Super Bowl II against the Oakland Raiders.

In 1975, he was the defensive coordinator of the Philadelphia Bell of the WFL and became the first African-American head coach in professional football of the modern era in late July, days before the first game of the season.

When Gregg left after the 1979 season for the Cincinnati Bengals in the NFL,[17] Wood became the first black head coach in the CFL, but after an 0–10 start in 1981, he was fired.

[24][25] An autopsy conducted by a Boston University neuropathologist found that Wood had severe (stage 4) chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head.