Bills running back Marshawn Lynch confirmed on Friday what anyone with a head full of something other than straw knew from the moment word broke that the Porsche SUV he owns was involved in a hit-and-run accident with a woman in the early morning hours of May 31 and Lynch opted to say nothing to anyone about what he knew or didn’t know.

Lynch was driving.

He pleaded guilty on Friday to a traffic violation — failure to exercise due care — and he apologized for the incident.

But Lynch maintains that he didn’t know that he hit the woman in question, apparently because he was distracted by a woman who was dancing in a crosswalk. 

“I was not speeding and at no time struck the woman who was dancing and spinning,” Lynch said in a written statement (i.e., a statement he likely didn’t write).  “I also never heard, saw or felt anything else that would lead me to believe that I had struck anyone else or anything else at that time.

“I was informed that the police believed that my car had been involved in an accident,” Lynch also said.  “At that time, I had no basis to believe that it had been involved in any accident.  I was in disbelief over this claim and uncertain how to proceed.  I was certain that my car did not strike the dancing pedestrian.

“I am sorry that Ms. Shpeley was struck and injured.  Please know that I was completely unaware that my car had made contact with anyone until after the investigation had begun.  I would never knowingly leave the scene of an accident and did not do so in this instance.”

Lynch nevertheless was fined the maximum of $100 and stripped of his license by an Administrative Law Judge, who announced that Lynch’s conduct showed “a reckless disregard of human life or property.”

In our view, Lynch’s statement possibly was aimed at providing him with a possible third-party defendant to the civil lawsuit that he surely will be facing.  The theory would be that the woman dancing in the street created a hazard, and diverted Lynch’s attention.  (There’s a Seinfeld episode on this point.  Kind of.)

Still, it doesn’t excuse, in our view, Lynch’s failure to cooperate with police.  His image took a major hit as he cowered behind the fifth amendment while police were trying to figure out what was going on.  And, in our view, the notion that Lynch didn’t talk to police about the accident because in his mind there was no accident at all is even more flimsy that the attempts at “clarification” this week from the likes of Don Imus and Terry Bradshaw.

[Editor’s note:  I previously misread the Buffalo News article, and I concluded that Lynch claimed that the woman he hit was the woman who was “dancing and spinning” in the street.  It was, on closer review, a different woman than the woman he claims he didn’t know he hit.  We apologize for the error.]