FRISCO, Texas — After 12 seasons in the NFL and the last eight with the Dallas Cowboys, defensive back CJ Goodwin has announced his retirement.<\/p>\n
Goodwin, 36, has played in 108 games for the Cowboys since he joined the team in 2018. He was the second longest-tenured Cowboy on the roster behind only Dak Prescott, who preceded Goodwin by two seasons.<\/p>\n
Since 2019, Goodwin has been one of Dallas’ key players on special teams, recording 69 tackles with the Cowboys [ninth in Cowboys history] and 87 in his NFL career. In 2021, Goodwin became the first player in franchise history to lead the team in special teams tackles for three consecutive seasons.<\/p>\n
After going undrafted in 2014, Goodwin received a tryout with the Pittsburgh Steelers after Steelers Hall of Fame cornerback Mel Blount, whose son attended high school with Goodwin and who Goodwin had worked for as a farm hand, urged the team to give him an opportunity. Pittsburgh would sign him as an undrafted free agent afterwards.<\/p>\n
Following time with the Steelers, Falcons, Cardinals, Giants, 49ers and Bengals, the Cowboys signed Goodwin off of Cincinnati’s practice squad in October of 2018.<\/p>\n
In his eight seasons with Dallas, Goodwin notched 2,211 snaps on special teams. He worked primarily as a gunner on punt coverage and was one of Dallas’ most impactful defenders on kickoff coverage during his career with the team.<\/p>\n
Goodwin was named one of the Cowboys’ six captains in 2025, and the second captain on special teams alongside Brandon Aubrey. He finished the year with 18 special teams tackles.<\/p>\n
In 2026, the Cowboys will now have to look to fill Goodwin’s shoes on special teams. Some of their offseason signings, like safety P.J. Locke, have a strong history as defenders on special teams and could end up being crucial for special teams coordinator Nick Sorensen in his second season in Dallas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRISCO, Texas — After 12 seasons in the NFL and the last eight with the Dallas Cowboys, defensive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,365274,252138,67242,67244,593,85],"class_list":["post-767366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cj-goodwin","tag-featured-offseason-2026","tag-news-all-news","tag-news-tommy-yarrish","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}