Doug Baldwin fights Richard Sherman in practice, then trash talks Michael Bennett

The Seattle Seahawks have had a number of practice fights this year, but most of them revolved around defensive end Michael Bennett and some of the new offensive linemen. However, on Monday, two of the oldest friends on the team (probably the two oldest), were the ones getting into a scrap and they insisted it wasn’t “orchestrated.”

Those two players being wide receiver Doug Baldwin and cornerback Richard Sherman, who have been playing together for nearly 10 straight years dating back to their days at Stanford.

The details of the fight as told in The News Tribune:

It came immediately after Baldwin had gone past Sherman and three-time All-Pro safety Earl Thomas for a long touchdown catch on a go-route down the numbers. Russell Wilson’s pass met Baldwin, last season’s NFL co-leader in TD receptions, in stride.

And then it was on. As in, Stanford on Stanford.

Sherman stomped across the line of scrimmage into the mass of offensive players behind that unit’s huddle. He went after Baldwin. Sherman’s arms flailed at the receiver’s helmeted head, his facemask and his shoulder-padded chest. Then they continued to yell at each other as coaches eventually separated them.

The Tribune also reported that Baldwin had a bruise on his forehead and apparent stitches on the bridge of his nose. Baldwin said little more about the details regarding what happened, other than the injuries occurred because of his helmet and “football stuff.” Everything else we know about the fight and how it started seem ... odd, at best.

Baldwin beat Sherman for a touchdown in practice, so he stormed into the huddle and started flailing his arms at him? Obviously there has to be more to what happened than just that, though we’ll probably never know for sure. That didn’t stop Baldwin from continuing to trash talk the defense.

Except then he started targeting Michael Bennett.

When Bennett got into a fight with tackle Bradley Sowell earlier in the week because he felt Sowell put another player’s livelihood in jeopardy unnecessarily, he spoke about a “code” about harming a teammates opportunity to make money and feed his kids. What did Baldwin have to say about that?

“I mean, yes, there is a ‘code.’ But Mike B. doesn’t always necessarily operate by that code, either,” Baldwin said.

“It hard to take him serious when he talks about other guys taking food off his kids’ plate – when he is driving around here with 10 different cars, you know?

“It’s all relative. You take it with a grain of salt.”

Then Baldwin said something that surprised absolutely no one on planet Earth:

“I’ll admit it: I’m kind of an agitator...”

Yeah, we know. But even for Baldwin this week’s practice fights and media quotes seem to have gone to another level. I guess that could come with the territory of leading the NFL in touchdown catches and then catching a $46 million contract.