Was Seahawks WR Doug Baldwin’s retirement letter missing something?

Doug Baldwin seemed to signal his retirement as a professional football player on Sunday night with a letter on his Twitter account addressed to his younger self. But was it missing something?

Doug Baldwin writes letter that signals retirement after Seahawks release

Brock Huard of 710 ESPN Seattle’s Brock and Salk sure thinks so.

“It was challenging for me to see all of that, and for the eight-plus years (Baldwin) was with the Seahawks, you have no Pete Carroll and no Russell Wilson included in that letter,” Huard said Monday morning in a discussion with guest host Tom Wassell.

Not only did Baldwin not mention the head coach for his entire time with the Seahawks nor the quarterback he went to two Super Bowls with and who threw the majority of Baldwin’s 493 career receptions, but he made mention of two other people that magnified those omissions: former Seahawks QB Tarvaris Jackson and former Seahawks offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell.

“If I’m one of those two men (Carroll or Wilson) and I look at the letter … in this whole journey that we’ve been on together, you’re going to you’re going to throw love to T-Jack and Darrell Bevell and not the coach that covered for you, the coach that when you were immature and volatile and all of those things had your back constantly? And then a quarterback that you grew up with together with brotherly love and holding each other accountable?

“Not even a hint of reverence to either of those guys. I can’t be alone in thinking and wondering where was any of that towards them.”

Wassell, however, said that Baldwin didn’t owe anybody a mention in his letter.

“Doug Baldwin didn’t credit the quarterback. God forbid someone doesn’t heap yet more praise on the quarterback. ‘The quarterback is what makes it go. The quarterback’s an extension of management. The quarterback’s the most important position in sports. The quarterback should be treated differently than everyone else. The quarterback is what gives you a chance to win every game.’ This one time the quarterback gets left out and you’re outraged by this? At the moment Doug Baldwin is leaving the game, you want to tear him down because of what he didn’t say and who he didn’t thank? And now we’re at the point where people are actually evaluating goodbyes?

“He’s laid it all out there for the entirety of a decade, made play after play, and here at the end – because of a tweet – you question his intentions. Who are we to sit here and judge Doug Baldwin for the way he conducts himself? The fact of the matter is that he didn’t have to say anything at all. He doesn’t owe us anything. He did this as a gesture to his fans. This is Doug’s moment – not yours, not mine, and not the quarterback’s. He gets to handle it however he wants.”

The lively conversation continued later on in the show, which you can find just after the 25-minute mark in this podcast of the first hour of Monday’s Brock and Salk show.

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