Seahawks’ Doug Baldwin: Owners ‘trying to send a message’ by not signing Colin Kaepernick

Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin has never shied away from talking about controversial topics, and that was no different when he took to the podium after Saturday’s training camp practice in Renton.

Asked about Colin Kaepernick remaining unsigned by NFL teams after he made waves by not standing during the national anthem before games last season, Baldwin said his opinion has changed on why that is the case.

“My original position was, I thought that the situation last year with him taking a knee didn’t have anything to do with it, and after viewing what’s going on I got to take that back,” Baldwin said. “I definitely think that the league, the owners are trying to send a message of staying between the lines, and it is frustrating because you want to have guys that are willing to speak out about things that they believe in – whether you agree with it or not. That is definitely playing a role now, more so than I thought it was going to.”

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Baldwin went on to say that there are several teams in the league that could stand to use a quarterback with the abilities of Kaepernick, who led the San Francisco 49ers to the NFC championship and a Super Bowl appearance during the 2012 season and another NFC championship game appearance the following year. The Miami Dolphins could be considered one such team after losing starter Ryan Tannehill to a knee injury, though they have reportedly been more interested in trying to coax Jay Cutler out of retirement than pursue Kaepernick.

“If you take a step back and look at the overall picture, there’s a lot of teams in this league that could use a quarterback with Colin Kaepernick’s ability, and why he doesn’t have a job, at this point it’s very telling to me,” Baldwin said. “He’s a very capable player and again there’s a lot of teams out there that need quarterbacks, whether they’re starting quarterbacks or a backup quarterback. The fact that he hasn’t been brought into camp yet is questionable.”

The Seahawks had a meeting with Kaepernick earlier in the offseason, kicking the tires on bringing him in to be Russell Wilson’s backup. Seattle instead has Trevone Boykin and Austin Davis competing for its No. 2 QB job, and Baldwin doesn’t appear to consider the Seahawks one of those teams in need of a quarterback choosing over Kaepernick.

“Surprised? I mean, I don’t know,” he said when asked if he was surprised the Seahawks didn’t sign Kaepernick. “I don’t really follow that. I didn’t follow that situation that closely at the time. I knew we were bringing him in as we always do (with available players of interest). That’s what our team does. We’re very methodical and strategic about everybody we bring in, making sure we’re up and aware of all the available assets that are out there. I wasn’t surprised about that.”

The Kaepernick situation wasn’t the only hot-button issue Baldwin addressed. He was asked about the ESPN Magazine article by Seth Wickersham that detailed past discord in the Seahawks locker room, and he was candid in his response.

“I think it just reinvigorated us to get back here,” he said about the article. “Obviously, everyone being in their separate areas, separate cities, states, whatever it may be, you don’t really have (the) face-to-face interactions and conversations that we have on a day-to-day basis for 12 hours during camp. Now that we are here, you can have those conversations, you can feel each other, you get the depth of the relationships and we build upon that until all of the issues during the offseason that may or may not have been true during the offseason, they get resolved in the locker room.”

As for whether the players had some things they needed to talk out when they got to training camp: “I don’t think any air needed to be cleared. Whatever happened during the offseason came out. We had our conversations, it was resolved rather quickly, and again we couldn’t wait to get back here to the facility to work.”

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