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Last week, the Seattle Seahawks released veteran receiver Doug Baldwin, after he expectedly failed a physical. Baldwin went through several offseason surgeries, and admitted he was contemplating retirement as his 30-year-old body just couldn’t hold up with the game any longer.
On Sunday night, Baldwin sent out a series of tweets that seemed to indicate his retirement from the league. Framed as a letter to his former self, Baldwin reflected on his entire life and football career, thanking people along the way who helped him through tough times and led him to being the two-time Pro Bowler he bacme in Seattle.
The notable part for Detroit Lions fans came when Baldwin praised the coaches that molded him:
And don’t forget the coaches. There will be good ones and there will be better ones. You will come to appreciate the great ones, even if others don’t. pic.twitter.com/B0YpCU1vrT
— Doug Baldwin Jr (@DougBaldwinJr) May 13, 2019
The man pictured in the photo above is current Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell. With the caption, “You will come to appreciate the great ones, even if other don’t” that seems to be pretty high praise for Bevell.
And it seems like he’s talking directly about Bevell in that moment. Back in 2018, after missing the playoffs for the first time in six years, Baldwin came to Bevell’s defense after the offensive coordinator was highly criticized (and eventually fired).
“How can I say this? How can I say this? It’s not playcalling. It’s not playcalling,” he said. “We go into a game knowing what the defense is going to give us, the situations that we’re going to be in. We don’t execute as a team. Offensively, that’s what we’ve seen time and time again is that we do not execute the way that we should. And that’s on us as players. You guys can blame Bev all you want to, but the truth of the matter is that Bev’s not the problem.”
Of course, it was never a perfect relationship. Baldwin once flipped Bevell the bird in the middle of a game. But even in that article, ESPN’s Sheil Kapadia calls Baldwin “one of Bevell’s biggest supporters.”
Regardless of whether the tweet was directly pointed at Bevell or not, it’s clear Baldwin had a lot of respect for him. Hopefully, Bevell will be able to create those sort of relationships in the Lions’ locker room.