Huge plus for Quinton Dunbar in his arrival as new Seahawks cornerback: he knows step-kick
Now we know why Pete Carroll, John Schneider and the Seahawks wanted Quinton Dunbar to be their new cornerback.
Seattle’s new challenger for Tre Flowers’ starting job in 2020 is arriving from Washington via his trade this week for a fifth-round draft choice. He told the Seahawks’ flagship station KIRO-AM radio Thursday he already knows Carroll’s step-kick technique, the way that has been difficult for other imported cornerbacks to master.
“Some of the things that they do in Seattle’s defense I’ve already implemented in my own game, the step-kick and stuff like that,” Dunbar told KIRO. “Because I’ve worked with coaches who have been over there, that I’ve known for a while, since I was a kid.”
Who?
“Marquand Manuel.”
Good teacher.
Manuel was a Seahawks defensive back in 2004-05. He started for Seattle in Super Bowl 40 against Pittsburgh but injured his hip and left the game in the second quarter. The Steelers took advantage of Manuel’s replacement, reserve and special-teams player Etric Pruitt, for the game’s biggest plays and won the NFL title with a 21-10 victory that Super Bowl Sunday in Detroit 15 years ago..
After Manuel was done playing he became a defensive-backs coach for Carroll. He taught Seahawks cover guys the step-kick technique in Seattle from 2012-14.
Manuel left Carroll’s staff following Seattle’s 2014 Super Bowl season to go with former Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn to Atlanta. He became the Falcons’ secondary coach when Quinn became Atlanta’s head man. Manuel was the Falcons’ defensive coordinator in the 2017 and ‘18 seasons. He is now defensive-backs coach on Ferndale native Doug Pederson’s staff with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Manuel and the 27-year-old Dunbar, 13 years younger, are natives of Miami. Dunbar’s high school, Booker T. Washington in Miami’s Overtown area, is 3 miles away from where Manuel went, Miami Senior High School in Little Havana. Both defensive backs played college ball upstate at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
“So I kind of implemented some of those things in my game, years ago,” Dunbar said.
That gives Dunbar, who is coming off a career-high four interceptions in 11 games last season, a huge advantage. That is, compared to Cary Williams, Antoine Winfield, Jamar Taylor and other older cornerbacks who have arrived from starting for other teams over the last seven years. All failed to grasp Carroll’s cornerback requirements.
Carroll was an All-Pacific Coast Athletic Conference defensive back at Pacific in 1971 and ’72, and a defensive backs coach starting in 1978 at Iowa State. He was at a Raiders-49ers joint training-camp practice in the early 1980s and saw Oakland Hall of Famer Willie Brown doing the step-kick.
Carroll’s been teaching it ever since. He’s unique in the NFL in doing so.
The step-kick requires a cornerback to line up a yard or two directly in front of the receiver and take an immediate step laterally with his outside foot. That’s to buy time; the defender waits almost in place as the receiver does all his shakes and jukes in an attempt to get past the jam.
The “kick” is throwing the foot back, away from the line of scrimmage, to turn and run with the receiver while staying in front of him. It’s counter to the way most cornerbacks learn and play at this elite level of football. Most jamming DBs step into the receiver and attack at the snap. The step laterally, the discipline and the patience to remain neutral with the feet while simultaneously being aggressive with the hands and body at the line of scrimmage are what’s so different about Carroll’s way.
After Brandon Browner came from the Canadian Football League and succeeded in learning the technique in the early 2010s, Williams flopped most infamously at it. Carroll and Schneider gave Williams an $18 million contract for three years in 2015 to replace Byron Maxwell as Seattle’s starting cornerback, after Maxwell left for free-agent riches to Philadelphia. Williams never did get the step-kick. But October of his first Seahawks season Carroll benched him. By December, before Williams finished even his first year with the team, he was cut.
Winfield was a star cornerback with Minnesota in the fade of his career, at age 35, when he signed with Seattle in the spring of 2013. Carroll cut him in August, before training camp had even ended.
Taylor had been a starter with Cleveland and prime cover man for Arizona and Denver before the Seahawks signed him last offseason. Carroll cut him twice, at the end of the preseason and for good in November. That’s why rookie Ugo Amadi finished last season as the nickel defensive back covering inside slot receivers. After Green Bay and Aaron Rodgers picked on Amadi for huge plays to seal the Packers’ home playoff win over Seattle in the divisional playoffs in January, Carroll said he wanted to add competition at that spot this offseason.
Dunbar knows all this. He also knows some are likening him to Richard Sherman.
Dunbar, like Sherman, is tall and rangy with long arms: 6 feet 2, 202 pounds, 32 5/8-inch arm length. Like Sherman, Dunbar was first a wide receiver. Sherman was one at Stanford. Dunbar was one at Florida; he switched to cornerback his rookie season with Washington as an undrafted free agent in 2015. Redskins coach Jay Gruden saw Dunbar lined up against wide receivers/gunners on punt plays in special-teams drills and noticed the gunners could not get off the line against Dunbar’s pressing of them at the snap.
“The rest is history,” Dunbar said on KIRO Thursday.
Sherman was a fifth-round pick by the Seahawks becoming a three-time All-Pro at cornerback. Dunbar just got traded for Seattle’s fifth-round pick in next month’s draft.
“I mean, I know everything about them,” he said of the Seahawks’ secondary. “I was growing up, I was still in college watching those guys. I mean, I wasn’t a DB at the time, but, you know, the ‘Legion of Boom.’ Watching Kam Chancellor and Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman. When I made that transition (to cornerback) I watched a lot of film on Richard Sherman. ...
“I know they’ve got great history back there. I’m just looking forward to being a part of that secondary and helping in any way that I can.
“I respect Richard Sherman. I feel like he’s been one of the best in the game for a long time,
“But I’m no Richard Sherman. I’m Quinton Dunbar. I am my own man.”
One who is entering the final year of his contract. It’s paying him $3.25 million in 2020.
He’s now playing for what every NFL player wants: security beyond the year he is in. He didn’t have that in Washington, especially not after the Redskins hired Ron Rivera as their new head coach with a new staff coming in this offseason.
That’s when Dunbar asked Washington to trade him.
“It wasn’t solely just on a new contract,” he said. “It was basically, I gave a lot to the Washington Redskins organization. It was just more of a respect factor—and that situation with the contract. You know, it didn’t have to be basically, solely on an extension or something like that.
“But, no, it’s not going to be an issue in Seattle. Before the trade was given, I had opportunity with a couple of teams. But I wanted to come to Seattle. At the end of the day, I think it is a perfect situation for me. I wanted a team that competes for championships every single year. So, I’m just looking forward to that. And everything will take care of itself.
“I just wanted a new beginning. I’m just going to help Seattle any which way that I can. Everything else will take care of itself. ...
“It’s kind of like a great situation for me. So, I’m glad to be here. I feel like I am right with those guys, as far as my mentality. I just want to come in, play ball, and help the team any way I can.”
KIRO morning co-host Danny O’Neil asked Dunbar for the one thing he does best outside football. The newest Seahawk cornerback’s answer shows he gets real life as much as the step-kick.
“Being a Dad,” he said.
“I have a beautiful daughter, almost 3 years old. Outside of football that’s what I enjoy doing. Being with her, being around her, creating those moments with her. That’s what I do best outside of football.”
For now, Dunbar and Denim, born in July 2016, are like the rest of us. They are confined to his home by our society’s need to contain the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Dad is getting to know the new karaoke machine Denim got and is putting to extensive use during the national lockdown.
“She’s singing the Elsa song,” Dunbar said, before breaking into the chorus of the most recognizable song from wildly popular 2013 Disney animated film Frozen.
“Let it go!” Dunbar sang out over the radio. “Let it go!’
This story was originally published March 26, 2020 at 1:00 PM.
