Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider’s biggest move of the offseason has not been a free agent signing, but rather the trade with the Washington Redskins to acquire cornerback Quinton Dunbar.
Schneider sent a fifth round pick out east for the rights to Dunbar, who was Pro Football Focus’ second highest rated cornerback last year, behind former Seahawk Richard Sherman.
Dunbar has excellent length – a classic Seahawks trait – and Schneider and coach Pete Carroll praised his versatility, ball skills and playmaking abilities in their first public comments since making the trade last month.
“He’s got a great feel for receivers at the top of the route,” Schneider said, noting his former experience as a receiver. “He’s got great ball skills. He could play inside. He could play outside.”
“I’m excited about this guy,” coach Carroll added. “He’s a playmaker and we need depth at corner and we need to cover people up and we need to be able to match up really well; continue to do that. Division continues to get more difficult and challenging. Excellent players coming in. And so for us to figure out a chance to get to Quinton and all that is great…makes us that much more competitive and hopefully just adds to this coverage that we need to play the kind of ball we want to play.”
The expectation is that Dunbar will start in place of Tre Flowers on the outside opposite Shaquill Griffin – although the team will allow Flowers to compete for the job in camp.
There’s at least an outside chance the Seahawks would explore having Dunbar play nickel, especially against big tight ends, but that would likely only happen if Flowers takes big strides this offseason and they want to get him in the starting lineup.
Regardless, Dunbar will be a big part of this Seattle defense in 2020, helping to reshape the secondary in the wake of the legion of boom era.
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