DANNY AND GALLANT

Gallant: Seahawks’ Dunbar’s actions signal to me he did nothing wrong

Aug 11, 2020, 10:40 AM

Seahawks CB Quinton Dunbar...

Seahawks CB Quinton Dunbar's recent actions have Paul Gallant thinking he's truly innocent. (Getty)

(Getty)

It’s easy to become a skeptic when you cover sports. We don’t get a lot of honesty. Athletes, coaches, and executives are always trying to present themselves in the best possible light. And when things hit the fan, like we saw with one Seahawks player this offseason, they often use silence, misdirection, or outright lies to hide the truth.

Seahawks’ Dunbar removed from NFL’s Commissioner’s Exempt List

Yeah, I’m a bit j-j-jaded on the latter. Can you blame me? We sure see a lot of statements that look like they were written by someone else, blame placed elsewhere, or the old “I was hacked” excuse attached to the worst stories in sports.

And yet, there I was on Saturday night, 100% believing that Seahawks cornerback Quinton Dunbar was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“PAWL! You naïve, Seahawks company man, I bet you think nanobubbles work too.”

This past weekend was a good one for Dunbar. Friday, Broward County prosecutors didn’t charge the former Washington Football Teamer – hehe – for his alleged involvement in the now infamous armed robbery of a Dice and Madden House Party. And Saturday, Dunbar was removed from the NFL’s Commissioner Exempt List. He may still face a suspension given that the NFL seems to spin a Wheel of Punishment to exact “justice” on its players. But he traveled to Seattle on Sunday, and will be sporting a Seahawks uniform in 2020.

Great news right? Well for some, there’s an elephant in the room.

Given the details of this case, Dunbar looks like he got lucky. Yeah, we live in a country where in court, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately, the court of public opinion doesn’t work like that. ESPECIALLY when your defense attorney allegedly pays off victims to change their account of the “robbery.” Good luck convincing the public that you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, no matter how true that might be.

And yet, Quinton Dunbar made a pretty aggressive play to clear his name.

You’d think that an athlete who’d just faced a legal scare would lay EXTREMELY low. Put it in the past, keep his head down, and do his best going forward to make people forget about the incident.

But that’s not what Dunbar is doing. See this Instagram caption from a post he made Saturday night:

“They tried to take my life and still trying to take another I won’t sleep right till these alleged victims get what they deserved they ain’t right at all in due time my god will expose them all.”

Call me naïve, but I don’t think Dunbar would go that hard against the alleged victims if he’d done something wrong. Glass houses and whatnot. He’s not moving on and hoping people forget. He’s hoping the people he believes wronged him get wronged themselves. And if they did, who can blame him?

I believe him. And if he feels this strongly about his innocence, I hope he appeals whatever suspension NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell throws his way.

But most importantly? Please never play dice again, Quinton. Because based on my expertise on the matter – watching one episode of Chappelle’s Show, and this incident – only bad things happen there.

Follow 710 ESPN Seattle’s Paul Gallant on Twitter.

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Gallant: Seahawks’ Dunbar’s actions signal to me he did nothing wrong