With 2022 starting defensive tackle Casey Sayles departing in free agency to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats this offseason, O’Bryan Goodson is one of the American defensive tackles being brought in to fight with third-year Blue Bomber Ricky Walker for the starting spot.
Goodson has always been undersized for an interior defensive lineman, even at the collegiate level, but that did not stop him from becoming a productive player at University of Memphis and earning First-Team All-American Conference honors in 2020. After weighing in at just over 5-foot-10 and 276 pounds at his Pro Day in March of 2021, however, he was deemed too small to smoothly transition to the NFL game.
After going unselected in the 2021 NFL Draft, Goodson signed with the B.C. Lions prior to the 2021 regular season, but he never came up North due to a family conflict that kept him in the U.S., causing B.C. to put him on their suspended list. Despite not having a professional team to train with, the Batesville, Mississippi native stayed in shape and was selected by the Seattle Sea Dragons with the 63rd overall pick in the 8th round of the 2022 XFL Draft.
Goodson spent all of training camp with the Dragons but was released in favour of other defensive tackles with more size. After being taken off B.C.’s suspended list one month later, the Blue Bombers scouting staff looked back at Goodson’s college tape at Memphis and saw a player who was an athletic fit for our defensive tackle room.
While he’s undersized traditionally for the position, undersized defensive linemen have had success in the CFL due to the pass-heavy nature of the three-down game. What’s more important than Goodson’s lack of positional size is his combination of snap anticipation and lateral agility to get off the ball swiftly and beat interior offensive linemen with quickness.
In football, it’s often said that the lowest man wins, and Goodson has the natural leverage due to his size to consistently win the leverage battle and get blockers off balance.
As a pass rusher, Goodson is not necessarily a people-mover, but he has hands that are quick, strong and accurate and showed a few nifty go-to pass rush moves on film. He can stack and shed blocks with violence and has the motor to aggressively pursue quarterbacks and ball carriers to and through the whistle.
As our scouting department looked at the tape, a play style comparison was made to another 5-foot-10 defensive tackle, former Blue Bombers starter ‘Stove’ Richardson. While Goodson has a long way to go to become the player that Richardson was in Winnipeg, his similar qualities will give him the opportunity to stand out amongst the defensive line competition.
Blue Bombers fans attending training camp will surely be keeping an eye on the defensive line competition, and they’ll want to keep a close eye on how the abilities Goodson showed on tape at University of Memphis translate to the CFL game.
Cyril Penn is a Blue Bombers U.S.-based scout who writes regularly for bluebombers.com, providing an inside look at some of the American prospects the club has signed and life on the scouting trail.
