Carroll regrets not signing Kaep

Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll revisited the team’s history with Colin Kaepernick on Thursday and expressed regret for not signing Kaepernick when given the opportunity.

Seattle brought Kaepernick in for a workout during the 2017 offseason and had another visit a year later canceled. At that time, Carroll said Seattle chose not to bring Kaepernick aboard because he was viewed as a starter, not a backup.

Carroll is reiterating that stance but says that in hindsight, he wishes he would have given Kaepernick a shot even if it meant a potentially awkward role as Russell Wilson’s backup. Carroll indicated that he believed Seattle passing on Kaepernick gave him a shot to be a starter elsewhere.

“I regret that we weren’t the one way back when that just did it, just to do it even though I thought that it wasn’t the right fit necessarily for us at the time,” Carroll said. “The reason that wasn’t the right fit is because I held him in such high regard I didn’t see him as a backup quarterback and I didn’t want to put him in that situation with Russ. And it just didn’t feel like the fit right so that’s the way I felt about it.

“I just wish it would happen. I wish we would have been a part of it when the time was available then.”

Seattle is believed to be the only team to have brought Kaepernick in for meetings and a workout since he last played in the league in 2016.

Carroll said the first call he received from another team about his conversations with Kaepernick happened earlier Thursday.