RENTON, Wash. -- Doug Baldwin bit his tongue as best he could on Monday, not wanting to break coach Pete Carroll’s No. 1 rule.

He held court with reporters in one corner of the Seattle Seahawks locker room as teammates filed in and out, packing up their belongings and saying their goodbyes the day after their season came to a disappointing end.

Baldwin’s eight-minute session included some carefully chosen responses, an R-rated defense of offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and obvious frustration about missing the playoffs for the first time since 2011.

The seventh-year wide receiver was asked what needs to happen for the Seahawks to right themselves.

“I can’t talk to you about that,” Baldwin said. “… Our first rule in this team is to protect the team, so if I was talk to you guys about what I believe is the issues, I wouldn’t be protecting the team.”

Although Baldwin didn’t say everything that he clearly wanted to, he said plenty -- particularly about the perception of Seattle’s offense versus what he believes is the reality.

Baldwin used the same term Carroll did Sunday night, calling the Seahawks’ 26-24 loss to the Arizona Cardinals a microcosm of their season. That was true in several aspects, including how the offense took an entire half to get going.

Doug Baldwin brings in a 29-yard touchdown pass from Russell Wilson in the Seahawks' season-ending loss. Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

In a game the Seahawks needed to win to have any shot of reaching the playoffs, they finished the first quarter with zero net yards. They had only 24 by halftime, by which point their only score had come off a Tyler Lockett return touchdown. They more than tripled that total on their opening drive of the third quarter, when they finished a 10-play, 80-yard drive with Russell Wilson hitting Baldwin for the first of his two touchdowns.

It was an all-too familiar disparity. On the season, the Seahawks were 30th in yards (133.9) and 29th in points (7.81) in the first halves of games, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Seattle was No. 1 in both second-half yards (196.5) and second-half points (15.06).

"No, not to me,” Baldwin said when asked if he found it puzzling how Seattle struggled on offense out of the gates. “But y’all will create your own narrative, and I won’t be able to tell you anything.”

He let loose when asked if he thinks Seattle’s playcalling has become risk-averse in recent seasons.

“Y’all are making it hard on me,” Baldwin said before turning serious. “Do any of you guys watch film? Do any of you guys really watch tape? I really question that sometimes because y’all make these narratives, y’all put these topics, these main titles and s---, and it’s like y’all don’t watch film, y’all don’t watch tape, and it really pisses us off sometimes as players.

"And I really wish I could say more, but I’m not going to, and obviously I’m frustrated because we lost, but I really wish [you would] do your job.”

He was asked what is being misperceived by those not watching the film.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not, umm, I don’t know. I can’t say it. My job is to protect the team right now, and I’m doing a poor job of that right now,” he said with a laugh.

Baldwin rubbed his face with both hands while searching for the right words. That’s when he defended Bevell, a popular target of criticism during many of his seven seasons running the team’s offense. Baldwin didn't name any names but said the players are to blame.

“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."

This season, the Seahawks finished 15th in total offense and 11th in scoring. Undoubtedly the biggest disappointment on that side of the ball was a 23rd-ranked running game that Seattle tried to fix in the offseason, but it remained very much broken in 2017. Wilson became the fifth quarterback since 1970 to lead his team in rushing, doing so with 586 yards while no tailback had more than 240. He scored three of Seattle’s four rushing touchdowns.

Of the team’s issues in general, Baldwin said: “I think they’re very solvable, and I think that it just comes with a different focus, a different mentality maybe. Just more self-evaluation and really understanding who we are as men, first and foremost, in this locker room -- or in this building, I should say -- and then growing from there.”

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Asked how many changes to the roster he expects this offseason, Baldwin said “several” and acknowledged that it’s a tough situation to envision. He is signed through 2020 and is coming off another productive season, with 75 catches for 991 yards and eight touchdowns, so whatever changes Seattle makes almost certainly will not involve him.

“Just don’t know what all that brings,” he said, “but we want to obviously get better because the trend that we’re on now is not good.”

The Seahawks’ win totals have steadily decreased since they won the franchise’s first Super Bowl after the 2013 season, when they went 13-3. The Seahawks finished 9-7 with Sunday's loss, snapping a steak of five straight playoff appearances and five straight seasons with at least 10 wins.

Baldwin was a rookie in 2011 when the Seahawks went 7-9. Despite the team's record that season, there was optimism because of the belief that it was an ascending team. Does Baldwin believe the Seahawks still have potential?

“I do,” he said after a long pause. "I think it’s just frustrating because you have so much talent on this team, and we’re capable of doing much more than we did this year, and we didn’t do it. So I think that’s why it feels different. My first year, kind of figuring out who are we, what’s our identity and then kind of establishing that as we went forward with core players, our core mindset, our core standard, and it’s the same thing. It’s just, for whatever reason, it didn’t come to fruition.”