Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin initially didn’t think Colin Kaepernick was unsigned for non-football reasons. But as the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback remains a free agent into August, Baldwin has begun to change his mind.
Baldwin said Saturday that he’s changed his tune on his beliefs about Kaepernick’s free agency, and now thinks that the quarterback is the victim of owners trying to send a message.
“My original position was, I thought that the situation last year with him taking a knee [during the national anthem] didn’t have anything to do with it and after viewing was going on I got to take that back,” Baldwin said, via Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk. “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.
“I think it’s, 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. 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.”
Baldwin was heavily involved in similar subjects on the Seahawks, so his views on this are interesting. Many thought Kaepernick would be signed by now, but that simply isn’t the case.
