Tag: B.J. Goodson

Linebacker retires just 8 days after signing with Jets

B.J. Goodson retired after playing just seven snaps with the Jets in Week 2. He signed with the team on Sept. 14.

The Jets placed veteran linebacker B.J. Goodson on Reserve/Retired list Wednesday, the team announced. The move comes a little over a week after he joined Gang Green.

Goodson signed a one-year, $2.1 million deal with New York on Sept. 14 after the Jets lost two linebackers with multi-week injuries. Goodson joined the Jets after stints with the Browns, Packers and Giants. He did suit up for New York in Week 2, but he only played seven special team snaps and zero on defense.

Now, after just one game with the Jets, Goodson is hanging up his pads.

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Former Tiger retires from the NFL

A former Clemson football player has decided to call it quits on his NFL career. The New York Jets announced the retirement of linebacker B.J. Goodson on Wednesday. Goodson signed with the Jets on Sept. 14 and played seven snaps on special teams …

A former Clemson football player has decided to call it quits on his NFL career.

The New York Jets announced the retirement of linebacker B.J. Goodson on Wednesday.

Goodson signed with the Jets on Sept. 14 and played seven snaps on special teams against the New England Patriots last Sunday.

Goodson has made 43 starts during his NFL career dating back to 2016. In addition to the Jets, he spent time with the New York Giants (2016-18), Green Bay Packers (2019) and Cleveland Browns (2020).

With the Browns in 2020, Goodson tallied a career-high 87 total tackles.

Goodson, who was drafted in the fourth round (109th overall) by the New York Giants in 2016, finished his NFL career with 251 tackles, 12 PDs and 4 INTs in 66 career games.

At Clemson from 2012-15, Goodson tallied 205 tackles, 17.5 tackles for loss, 6.5 sacks, 21 quarterback pressures, five pass breakups and five recovered fumbles over 47 games (21 starts).

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Jets sign P Thomas Morstead, LB B.J. Goodson, work out 7 others

Gang Green signed P Thomas Morstead & LB B.J. Goodson as injury replacements. Several others worked out for New York, including 3 ex-Jets.

The Jets found some replacements for their injured players on Tuesday.

New York signed former Saints punter Thomas Morstead to an undisclosed deal, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero. The Jets also added linebacker B.J. Goodson on a one-year, $2.1 million contract, per Pelissero.

Both should immediately step into prominent roles after the Jets were ravaged by injuries in Week 1. Morstead should become the team’s starting punter after Branden Man suffered a knee injury that will force him to miss 4-6 weeks. Goodson gives the Jets more depth at linebacker following injuries to Blake Cashman and Jamien Sherwood. New York previously lost Jarrad Davis to an ankle injury. He’s out until at least Week 6.

Morstead, 35, punted for 12 years in New Orleans before the Saints released him this past March. He finished the 2020 season first in fair catch rate, fifth in lowest return rate allowed, seventh in hang time and 13th in net punting. However, Morstead’s 43.1 yards-per-punt average was the worst of his career and ranked 32nd in the league.

Goodson, 28, started 14 games in a career year for the Browns in 2020. He finished 91 combined tackles, seven defended passes, two interceptions, one forced fumble and half a sack. The 6-foot-1, 241-pound outside linebacker had a 65.4 overall Pro Football Focus grade last season. Goodson also spent time with the Giants and Packers from 2016-2019 after being drafted in the fourth round by the Giants out of Clemson.

Before signing Morstead and Goodson, the Jets worked out a few other players, including some familiar faces.

Former Jets linebackers Avery Williamson and Noah Dawkins were among those in the team facility. Williamson played two-and-a-half seasons with the Jets before being traded to the Steelers midway through the 2020 season. Dawkins was among the Jets’ 2021 training camp cuts. Punter Lachlan Edwards also worked out for the team. Edwards punted for the Jets from 2016-2019.

Tackle Elijah Nkansah and punters Colby Wadman, Ryan Winslow, and Corliss Waitman also worked out for Gang Green.

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Former Tiger reportedly finds new home in the NFL

A former Clemson Tiger has reportedly found a new home in the NFL. Former Clemson linebacker B.J. Goodson is signing with the New York Jets, according to multiple reports. Goodson has made 43 starts during his NFL career dating back to 2016. He has …

A former Clemson Tiger has reportedly found a new home in the NFL.

Former Clemson linebacker B.J. Goodson is signing with the New York Jets, according to multiple reports.

Goodson has made 43 starts during his NFL career dating back to 2016. He has spent time with the New York Giants (2016-18), Green Bay Packers (2019) and most recently the Cleveland Browns last season.

With the Browns in 2020, Goodson tallied a career-high 87 total tackles to go with six pass deflections and two interceptions.

Goodson, who was drafted in the fourth round (109th overall) by the New York Giants in 2016, finished his Clemson career with 205 tackles, 17.5 tackles for loss, 6.5 sacks, 21 quarterback pressures, five pass breakups and five recovered fumbles over 47 games (21 starts).

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Tennessee Titans held visit with free-agent LB B.J. Goodson

Goodson spent the 2020 campaign as a starter for the Cleveland Browns.

The Tennessee Titans hosted free-agent inside linebacker B.J. Goodson on a visit on Thursday, according to the league’s transactions wire.

Goodson, who was a former fourth-round pick of the New York Giants, spent the 2020 season with the Cleveland Browns, where he started in all 14 games he played, totaling 91 combined tackles (two for loss), 0.5 sacks, three QB hits, two interceptions and six passes defensed.

If signed, Goodson would join a stable of inside linebackers that currently includes Jayon Brown, Rashaan Evans and David Long. While he would have an outside chance to earn a starting role, chances are he’d serve as a depth piece that also contributes on special teams.

The Titans have a big decision coming up on Evans, as the team must decide whether or not to pick up the former first-round pick’s fifth-year option by May.

If we’re basing it on what we saw last season, there’s a good chance Evans’ option will get declined when the time comes. If so, it isn’t crazy to think that Tennessee could deal the Alabama product with Long waiting in the wings.

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B.J. Goodson: Why the Browns need to re-sign the free agent LB

Goodson played progressively better in his first season in Cleveland

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The Browns have several players who are entering free agency after being contributors to the team in 2020. While some will need to find new NFL homes and Browns fans shouldn’t fret about losing them, linebacker B.J. Goodson is one the team needs to keep.

Goodson played better than expected on his one-year contract in Cleveland. In 14 games, all starts, Goodson led the Browns with 91 tackles. He also broke up six passes, picked off two, recovered a fumble and notched a half-sack and two TFLs.

Numbers only paint part of the picture, of course. The 91 tackles terminated plays but didn’t do a lot to truly stymie the offense. Goodson ranked dead last among all LB qualifiers (50% or more snaps) in run stop percentage per Pro Football Focus. Here’s the PFF definition criteria,

The PFF “Run Stop Percentage” focuses only on running plays and “stops” (tackles that constitute a “loss” for the offense).

A player’s impact in the running game is sometimes erroneously based on the total volume of tackles made. However, firstly, does that number include tackles on passing plays and, more importantly, did those tackles really count? Stops constitute a “loss” for the offense so this table shows the percentage of stops per snap played only in run defense.

Goodson had a stop percentage of just 3.7%, compared to the league leader (Houston’s Zach Cunningham) at just over 12%. Former Browns LB Joe Shobert was in the middle of the pack at 7.4% in his first season with the Jaguars, right at the league average.

While the figure looks bad, the context of how Goodson was used in the scheme does help provide context. He was seldom the primary person responsible for making the initial tackle against the run based on Joe Woods’ alignments. Goodson wasn’t really deployed as a downhill attack dog, which is odd because that was his primary role in his stints with both the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers.

At least Goodson proved a reliable tackler. He missed five tackles against his 92 total, a success rate that ranked fourth in the NFL in 2020. That’s a sign he could do more than he was asked in his first year in Cleveland.

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It was easy to see Goodson get more comfortable in his role in Woods’ defense as the 2020 season progressed. His interplay and spacing in coverage got better the more he played with his new teammates, particularly the coordination with the safeties playing outside and behind him.

Goodson also proved himself in the leadership department. He was the field general and a veteran voice helping the youngsters all around him — Sione Takitaki, Mack Wilson, Jacob Phillips — get in better position and learn to read the offenses quicker. There’s some real value in that.

Goodson shouldn’t require a big contract. There’s certainly no need to overpay to keep the (soon-to-be) 28-year-old. But another one-year contract, or a two-year deal with some front-loaded guaranteed money, makes a lot of sense for the Browns and Goodson. He made a modest $2.4 million in 2020.

A two-year, $9 million deal is the right range for Goodson — roughly league-average at his position for a player who offers reliability, some versatility and much-needed continuity on a defense that could have as many as six new starters in 2021. It makes little sense to try and find another player who offers the Browns exactly what Goodson does to try and pinch a little savings.

 

Get used to seeing 4-2-5 as the Browns base defense

The Browns ran 4-2-5 more than twice as much as a base 4-3

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One of the decisions Andrew Berry, Kevin Stefanski and the Browns staff made in the past offseason was to deliberately spend less resources at the linebacker position. That’s part of why Joe Schobert is now in Jacksonville. Based on how Stefanski and defensive coordinator Joe Woods deployed the players in 2020, don’t expect a significant investment in the off-ball LB position in 2021 either.

Like most of the rest of the NFL, the Browns used a base defense that had just two LBs on the field. The 4-2-5 or even the 4-1-6 as a base formation was the dominant deployment. Those two made up over half of the total defensive snaps in the NFL in 2020.

Graphic courtesy of r/NFL

For the Browns, it was even more pronounced. Per John Kosko of Pro Football Focus, which tracks personnel on every snap, the Browns defense under Woods broke down like this in 2020:

4-3-4: 267 snaps (24.8%)

4-2-5: 721 snaps (66.9%)

The rest was primarily 4-1-6 though some heavy packages on short-yardage and red zone situations also factored in.

The linebacker snap count breakdown:

B.J. Goodson – 848 (78.7%)

Malcolm Smith – 559 (51.9%)

Sione Takitaki – 434 (40.3%)

Mack Wilson – 372 (34.5%)

Jacob Phillips – 169 (15.7%)

Tae Davis – 25 (2.3%)

Interestingly, Woods actually used three LBs significantly more than predecessor Steve Wilks in 2019. The Browns had a span of seven games in 2019 where there were more than two LBs on the field exactly once.

The relative lack of depth at safety compared to linebacker in 2020 likely contributed to the increased usage. With Grant Delpit, the team’s second-round pick and projected top safety before an injury wiped out his rookie season, coming back, the Browns could lean more on using one LB more than three in 2021.

Final Browns injury report for divisional weekend: No players ruled out, 4 questionable vs. Chiefs

The Browns are finally getting healthy

There is very good news with the final Cleveland Browns injury report for the week leading into Sunday’s AFC divisional round matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs. No Browns players have been ruled out due to injury, and all players have been activated off the reserve/COVID-19 list.

The final injury report lists four Cleveland players as questionable:

  • RT Jack Conklin (knee/hamstring)
  • TE David Njoku (hamstring)
  • LB B.J. Goodson (hamstring)
  • TE Stephen Carlson (groin)

Four key players who were limited in practice during the week carry no injury status designation for the game. DE Myles Garrett, DT Sheldon Richardson, center JC Tretter and RG Wyatt Teller are all deemed good to go against the Chiefs.

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Browns injury update: 3 players out, 4 more starters limited in Wednesday’s practice

The list includes 3 of the starting 5 offensive linemen

The first official Cleveland Browns injury report for the divisional round matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs features a lot of prominent names. Three players sat out Wednesday’s practice session in Berea, including All-Pro right tackle Jack Conklin and starting LB B.J. Goodson. Tight end David Njoku also sat out.

Four more starters were limited, most notably All-Pro DE Myles Garrett. Two fellow starters with Conklin on the offensive line, center JC Tretter and right guard Wyatt Teller, were also limited with lingering injuries. Defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson rounds out the limited list.

Conklin’s status, missing with a designated knee/hamstring issue, is the most concerning. He left Sunday’s wild-card win over Pittsburgh with the injury and did not return. Kendall Lamm is in line to replace Conklin if he’s not able to play.

Garrett, Teller and Tretter have all played through their respective injuries in recent weeks.

The full practice report from the Browns:

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Browns sign OL Anthony Fabiano, activate LB B.J. Goodson

Fabiano started 4 games for the Browns in 2016

Facing a depth crunch along the offensive line due to several injuries, the Cleveland Browns brought back a familiar old name. The Browns signed lineman Anthony Fabiano to the active roster on Wednesday.

Fabiano has been with the Browns before. Back in 2016, he played in four games, starting one, as a rookie center out of Harvard. He’s also played for the Indianapolis Colts in 2017 and has spent time on several practice squads in the meantime. Fabiano spent the 2018 preseason with the Browns, too.

The team also activated linebacker B.J. Goodson from the reserve/COVID-19 list, which is a very welcome development to help bolster the defense. Goodson was the team’s leading tackler in the regular season despite missing the final two games. He was the first player to test positive for COVID-19 during the latest wave of infection.

Practice squad safety Elijah Benton was also activated from the reserve/COVID-19 list.