TAMPA, Fla. — The play was a simple receiver screen. In 2022′s first regular-season game, against the Cowboys, on the first offensive snap, Chris Godwin took one step back to catch the ball, then moved forward with the rest of his career.
Bucs offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich had planned it for weeks. Godwin — who was returning from torn anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his right knee suffered while making a catch against the Saints on Dec. 19, 2021 — was going to get the ball in his hands as soon as possible. The wide receiver needed to take a hit below the waist and heal the biggest mental scar left from the injury.
Godwin caught the pass from Tom Brady, got a block from receiver Mike Evans and raced 24 yards across midfield for a first down.
“I don’t know how he does it. I really don’t,” Leftwich said. “The best feeling I had all year was the first play in Dallas. That’s why that play was called, to see him in that game. I wanted to get it out of the way, and it went for (24 yards) just to show who he is as a player.
“I’ll remember that the rest of my life, really. Going into Dallas, him being in the starting lineup, that was unreal. That goes to show you the work that he puts in. I wanted to reward him for that. It was good for us as a team to see him get that because of what it did for us. Once he got up, the season could start.”
Godwin did suffer a hamstring strain against the Cowboys that caused him to miss a couple of games, but his performance has slowly rounded back into the kind of consistent production he was known for before the hit on his right knee by Saints safety P.J. Williams.
Along the way, Godwin has looked for signs that he is returning to the form that made him one of the best in the league at his position.
“There’s been a couple throughout the year,” Godwin said. “The very first play versus the Cowboys. It was actually the second play of the game, but there was a penalty, so now it ends up being the first one. That was the first one where I was like, ‘Yeah, now I’m back up doing this.’ I think there was a big play in the Ravens game where I caught an over route and took it, like, 40 yards. I was starting to see bit and pieces of it, and I was like, ‘All right, it’s still there.’
“It’s not fully there. But I’m starting to see more glimpses out there, which is very encouraging.”
Godwin leads the Bucs in receptions with 89 for 848 yards and three touchdowns. His trademark consistency has been on display. He has had at least six receptions in every game in which he has played since the opener except one, including a season-high 12 catches for 110 yards and a touchdown in an overtime loss to the Browns on Nov. 27.
On Wednesday, Godwin took a moment from preparing for Sunday’s critical game against the Panthers to reflect on his journey. A win over the Panthers would give the Bucs a successful defense of their NFC South title.
While certain anniversaries aren’t meant to be celebrated — Godwin passed the one-year mark since his injury last week — he did take a mental note of the occasion.
To understand the journey Godwin has endured, at the time of his injury he had accounted for a third of the Bucs’ pass targets from Brady. Despite missing the final three games of last season, he finished with 98 receptions, second most in club history, for 1,103 yards and five touchdowns.
He didn’t have surgery, performed by James Andrews, until Jan. 3 of this year to reconstruct the knee, having the damaged ligament replaced with a patellar tendon by utilizing a bone graft.
It took months for Godwin to be able to walk, then run and jump again. He missed most of the team work in training camp and did not play in the preseason.
“I don’t know if we’ve ever seen someone do it so quick and be a part of all the games and still getting better every day,” Leftwich said.
Godwin believes he could have made a difference for the Bucs in last season’s playoffs, including the loss in the division round to the Rams. That’s why being able to play in Sunday’s potential NFC South clincher is so important to him.
“I think it’s really gratifying,” Godwin said. “I try not to focus too much on stats. I really try to look at everything as my impact on the team, and I try to look at the game as a whole and see if I made a positive impact or not. If I didn’t, how can I be better?
“But I think just being as consistent as I can is something I can try and hang my hat on. I want to be a reliable guy for my team so that whenever the ball is thrown my way, they expect that the plays are going to be made.”
