As Tyler Lockett’s Seahawks career comes to a close, there are innumerable records and stats that define his legacy.
He is second in team history in receptions (661), receiving yards (8,954) and touchdowns (61) behind only first ballot Hall of Famer Steve Largent.
But Lockett’s decade-long career — which will surely one day result in induction into the team’s Ring of Honor — will be remembered more in moments than in numbers.
There are so many that picking which to highlight is as difficult of a task as defensive backs faced covering Lockett on the field.
But as Lockett for now steps off the Seahawks stage, here are five moments to remember.
Expectations were high after the Seahawks made the rare — for them — decision of moving up in the draft to take Lockett at No. 69 overall in 2015. They projected him to initially serve as the primary kickoff and punt returner — each had been a season-long issue in 2014 — along with complementing veterans such as Doug Baldwin and Jermaine Kearse in the receiving corps.
The hype only grew when he returned a kickoff 103 yards for a touchdown in the preseason opener against Denver.
Lockett somehow lived up to it all as quickly as possible, returning the first punt he ever received in the NFL — from Rams punter Johnny Hekker out of the end zone late in the first quarter of the season opener in St. Louis — 57 yards for a touchdown.
Two weeks later he returned a kickoff 105 yards for a TD against the Bears in his first home game, a franchise record that still stands and which, given new kickoff rules, might live forever.
A week later he was named the NFC’s Special Teams Player of the Month.
“I think it was a great honor,” Lockett said before admitting, “I never knew that they actually did anything like that, but I mean just being able to see it. The first person that told me about it was Doug Baldwin, and he was just like, ‘Congrats, rook,’ and I was like, ‘What did I do this time?’ I thought I did something wrong. But then I ended up looking on Twitter and then I saw it, and I mean it was a great feeling.”
What was the low point of Lockett’s Seahawks career — suffering a fractured fibula and tibia in a home game against Arizona on Christmas Eve in 2016 — turned into a defining moment in perseverance with how he overcame the injury to play every game the following season.
Teammates called the injury as gruesome as any they had seen.
“There was blood everywhere near his ankle and stuff, so that was an ugly situation,” quarterback Russell Wilson said after the game. “You just pray for him. You pray that he can stay encouraged, he may not be right now obviously, this year, but I know if anybody is strong it’s him and he’s as tough as can be.”
Eight months later, Lockett was again in the lineup for the season opener at Green Bay.
“It was a blessing to be back,” Lockett said. “You never know how long you have to play this game, so you go out there and play as if it were your last every single week.”
He missed only two regular-season games due to injury in his Seattle career.
Lockett’s true breakout season as a receiver came in his fourth year in 2018, which turned out to be Baldwin’s final season in Seattle.
Lockett caught 57 passes that season for 965 yards, an average of 16.9 per reception that was the best for any Seahawk in 22 years.
The only question when the season ended was why the Seahawks hadn’t thrown it to him more.
In a feat that can’t be topped, Wilson recorded a 158.3 passer rating when he threw to Lockett that season, the highest number possible.
Lockett got his receptions on just 70 targets, including 10 touchdowns, with none of Wilson’s passes thrown his way being intercepted.
It was the first time since 2009 (Drew Brees and Robert Meacham with New Orleans) that a quarterback had a perfect passer rating when targeting a specific receiver 50 times or more in a season.
No one was more impressed by it all than Baldwin.
“I couldn’t be happier for him,” Baldwin said following the final game of the 2018 season. “I’ve said this all year, just the things he has gone through physically, mentally, emotionally, overcoming the injury he had to overcome, and to be able to produce the way he produced this year — this team needed him to do so — it’s phenomenal. It’s a credit to him not only as a football player but as a man, how mentally tough he is to be able to do all of that. And he’s not done, we’ve got a lot more work to do.”
It’s fair to read the sentence above and wonder which of the many we could be referring to here.
Over the years, teammates grew to call Lockett the “toe tap king.”
While Lockett had dozens of highlight-reel catches in his Seattle career, one stood above all: a full-body-stretching grab of a Wilson pass that he initially appeared to be throwing away in the back of the end zone during a Thursday night home game in 2019 against the Rams.
On the play, which snapped from the Rams’ 13, Wilson scrambled, circled and otherwise sauntered away from pressure to his left.
As Rams defenders closed, Wilson chucked the ball off his front foot from the 26 to the back corner of the end zone.
Lockett, who had lined up on the right side of the field and then ran a crossing route, initially cut back to the middle in the end zone as Wilson began scrambling before darting to the sideline.
As the ball appeared set to fly out of bounds, with the closest initial receiver being tight end Luke Willson, Lockett arrived and snared it out of the air, tapping both feet just in bounds, as announcer Troy Aikman marveled “that is unbelievable.”
NFL Next Gen Stats calculated the pass had a completion probability of 6.3%, the lowest in two years, noting Lockett was 0.2 yards from the sideline and 1.1 yards from the back of the end zone — meaning the ball traveled about 35 yards in the air.
“When he threw it, I knew he was throwing it to me,” Lockett said. “I didn’t really see Luke until I watched the clip. When he threw it, I knew he was giving me a chance. I knew that I had a chance to be able to catch it and it wasn’t an out-of-bounds-type of throw. The only reason why I knew was because he did certain things like that in practice. When I asked him, he would be like, ‘Oh, I was throwing it away,’ or, ‘I wasn’t.’ In this game, you just have got to make a chance. Make a play. Even if I didn’t get my feet in, next time, that would’ve been able to put them in a position to give me a chance.”
Lockett would have preferred to leave a game midway through the 2020 season against the Cardinals in Glendale, Ariz., with a win.
He had to accept as a consolation prize turning in maybe the best receiving performance in team history, all things considered.
On Oct. 25, a Sunday night, Lockett had 15 catches for 200 yards in a 37-34 overtime loss.
The catches tied Largent’s single-game team record and the yards were second; Largent had 15 receptions for 261 yards in a game at Detroit in 1987. That, though, came in what was the last of three games that season that involved replacement players, with the regular players mostly on strike, a contest Seattle won 37-14.
In a game in which every point and yard mattered, Lockett had eight catches for 133 yards and two TDs at halftime. He had another five for 42 and a TD in the second half and two catches for 25 yards in overtime.
His final TD, from 3 yards out, came on a sliding catch in the back of the end zone on a fourth-down play in the fourth quarter.
“Tyler Lockett’s game was just crazy,” then-head coach Pete Carroll said. “He just did so many terrific things, so many special plays. He’s just a great football player, and he showed it again.”
