Falcons defensive lineman Eddie Goldman placed on exempt/left squad list
Goldman, 29, initially signed with the club on July 6, 2022 before retiring 13 days later. He came out of retirement in March after reaching out to Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith expressing interest in playing again and reported to training camp on Tuesday with the rest of his teammates. He never practiced with the team, though, as Smith said Goldman was dealing with a personal issue. Then, on Friday, Smith said Goldman might retire for a second time.
“It’s a possibility there,” Smith said Friday. “With Eddie, last year, retired and then we put him on that and then he actually reached out to us. When somebody does that, you say, ‘all right, why not. See how it goes.’ To his credit, he looked phenomenal when he showed up the other day.
“But like I said, you just never know what somebody’s going through and you’re mindful, we’ll do everything to help our players so we’ll have a final answer probably [Saturday]. But that’d be a great possibility.”
While it’s not clear whether or not Goldman will retire again officially, Smith said Saturday that Goldman won’t be with Atlanta this season.
Goldman was drafted in the second round in 2015 by Chicago out of Florida State, the only NFL team he ended up playing a snap for. He ended up appearing in 81 games for the Bears, starting 73 of them. He had 175 tackles, 18 tackles for loss and 13 sacks in his career, which also saw him opt out of the 2020 season during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Goldman said when he returned in 2021 he had “weighed all of my options” and that it “took a toll on me” to watch his teammates play without him. When he last played in 2021, he had a half-sack and 22 tackles in 14 games. Deciding to unretire, he had become part of the potential of a revamped defensive front including Calais Campbell, Grady Jarrett and David Onyemata, who are expected to be the team’s three starters on the defensive line. Instead, Goldman decided to retire once again.
To take Goldman’s place on the roster, Atlanta signed defensive tackle Justin Ellis, who played last season for the New York Giants. A fourth round pick by the Raiders in 2014 out of Louisiana Tech, Ellis has played in 117 games with 54 starts for the Raiders, Giants and Baltimore, making 182 tackles with 1.5 sacks.
Atlanta also signed defensive lineman Kemoko Turay, who has played in 41 games for Indianapolis and San Francisco with 12 sacks, and released linebacker Dorian Etheridge.