Police admitted they had the wrong guy when they issued a warrant for Lucky Whitehead’s arrest on Monday, but the Dallas Cowboys stood by their decision to release the wide receiver. Does the team know something about the situation that we don’t?
Kate Hairopoulos of the Dallas Morning News reports that the Cowboys remain “suspicious” of Whitehead’s version of what happened with the arrest warrant. Although police confirmed his innocence, Whitehead reportedly changed his story multiple times when speaking to the team.
It was a horrible look for the Cowboys to cut a player who was a victim of mistaken identity, but neither Jason Garrett nor Jerry Jones expressed regret over the situation. In fact, Garrett danced around a question about whether or not Whitehead told him he was innocent.
“We know a lot of things about our players that you guys don’t know,” the coach said.
It’s tough to speculate about what the Cowboys could know that the public doesn’t, especially after police said they are “confident” Whitehead’s information was falsely provided. The shoplifting incident he was originally thought to be involved in took place in Virginia on June 22, and Whitehead had a plane ticket proving he wasn’t even in the state at that time.
What we do know is that Whitehead has had other off-field issues with the Cowboys, such as when he was left behind for a road game last year because he was late to a meeting — something that had apparently happened more than once.
For whatever reason, the Cowboys seem confident in their decision. They were likely planning to cut Whitehead anyway and tried to make an example out of him, but it backfired. If reporters continue to ask Garrett to explain the timing of the release, we saw on Tuesday how he is going to react.
Unless there’s some bombshell piece of information the Cowboys know about that the general public doesn’t, you can expect Whitehead to file a grievance against the team.
