[jwplayer XhJmi3Zr-ThvAeFxT]
Former Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Carlos Dunlap says he contemplated retirement earlier this season before his trade to the Seattle Seahawks.
Ahead of a trip to the playoffs, Dunlap took time to pen a letter in The Player’s Tribune chronicling his wild year and noted the following:
“Earlier this year, when things weren’t going so great in Cincy, I’ll be honest with you: I did some serious thinking on what I wanted to do with my career. Weighed all options. I even gave some thought to retiring — I really did. I took out a notepad, and wrote down the pros and the cons of just walking away.”
Elsewhere in the letter, Dunlap said he knew for a few weeks that his time with the Bengals was over but that one Monday he was told to stay home and not report.
That lines up, of course, with Dunlap getting into a sideline altercation with coaches during a game before the trade happened a few days later.
Still, it’s interesting to somewhat hear Dunlap’s take on the year and he made sure to note later in letter the following: “To tell you the truth, I think people have no idea how much I love playing, or how badly I want to win. That’s not a knock on Cincy, or those teams we had there, or the way we played. That’s all love. But the business of football is what it is…… it doesn’t always work out.”
We’ll never fully know all the details that led to the split, but Dunlap ended up getting what the letter describes — the ability to play a starter’s role on a contender and show he still has what it takes to play at a high level.
[listicle id=40158]