Malik Dunbar — the Football Player?

There’s no real news here, and I would hate to start the rumor mill churning, but you should take a gander at the picture below.

That’s Malik Dunbar in a football helmet and gloves.

I repeat, that’s Malik Dunbar looking good in a football helmet and gloves.

What if Malik Dunbar pulls a total #ClassicMalik move and tries out for the NFL? Obviously, this has happened before. Antonio Gates went to play football for (ironically) Nick Saban at Michigan State, but he also wanted to play hoops for Tom Izzo. Saban wouldn’t allow him to play both sports, so he ended up at Kent State and only entered the NFL after a tryout.

Gates only ended up catching 955 passes for over 11,000 yards and 116 touchdowns. He’s one of the most prolific tight ends in NFL history, and he didn’t play a snap of college football.

Something that we’ve talked about a bit on the Orange and True Podcast presented by Sonic Tools USA is how unbelievably large basketball players are compared to football players.

Antonio Gates is 6’4. Rob Gronkowski is 6’6, with a vertical leap of 32 inches. Malik Dunbar is 6’6. I don’t have the numbers available, but I’m going to guess that Malik Dunbar’s vertical leap is better than 32 inches. If it’s not 40+, I’ll be disappointed.

Dunbar would tower over even the tallest corners, and they’d have no chance to match his vertical leap. His football experience may be lacking, but there’s no denying his basic athletic ability. He’d be one of the most physically imposing guys on the field, and there wouldn’t be a corner that could compete on a jump ball.

We’ll see if he ends up actually making headway in this endeavor, because it would be AWESOME to see Malik clowning some fools on the football field. The only danger would be if he played on instinct and tried to alley-oop slam the football over the goalpost instead of catching it.

War Eagle!