By james art 
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Brady Henderson
Renton, Washington – Before Tyler Locket, answering questions from reporters after the Seattle Seyhox season, the veteran receptionist has offered recognition to some of the uncomfortable team officials.
First were the boys of the equipment who “barely even sleep” after games because they work so late. The athletic coaches followed, who helped Locket to respond to the bell for everyone, except for three games in their 10th seasons at NFL. He later mentioned the nutritionist of the team, his coaches in strength and condition, and even the third-floor staff at the Headquarters of Seahawks, who are not in football operations.
“I just appreciate everyone,” said Locket, the second most fruitful wide successor in franchise history. “I really do it.”
Although it was not quite a goodbye, it was a pouring of thanks from someone who knew that he might have just played his last match like Seahawk.
Locket is 33 years old in September. He has been coming out of his oldest season from 2017, grabbing 49 missing 600 yards and two touchdowns. And although he firmly believes that his immersion in production is not an indication that his game has fallen, he is ready to make an incapable of $ 17 million in the next season, while counting nearly $ 31 million according to the wage cap-swollen figures for someone, Who designs to be Seattle’s third receiver behind DK Metcalf and Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Which means that the only way Locket will return for season 11 in Seattle is if the two countries work with a reduced contract, as they did last year.
But even if he was subject to another pay reduction, how much will Seahawks really be ready to pay to his third receiver, given a new offensive coordinator Clint Cubiak, rarely uses three -row kits against the rest of NFL?
“It’s easy to say that we want to come back, but you still need to be able to have these conversations and find out what will work and what will not work, what the role will be …” said Locket, whose wife expects your first child. “All I can really do is enjoy the fact that I’m about to have a girl and what they want to do.”
Locket has made it clear that he intended to play in 2025 when he asked him on February 11 if he was planning to return to Seattle, coach Mike McDonald said they were still working on the matter.
The resolution will probably come well before the $ 5.3 million locket bonus to be due to March 16, or a message giving him a free agency or a revised contract, which gives financial clarity to the team before the negotiation window.
Locket was grateful that General Manager John Schneider found a way to get him back last year after entering the extra -season uncertain for his future on the heels of Pete Carroll’s expulsion as the chief coach and his slight decline in production. His redesigned deal involved a $ 4 million pay reduction, with Seahawks correctly predicting that Smith-Nigba would outstrip him in the receiver’s pecking order.
Smith-Nigba really exploded in her second season, leading the team with 1130 yards and six touchdowns. He tied Locket’s one -season franchise with 100 catch after the veteran told him at the end of the year that he wanted him to interrupt him.
“He called to Jax that he wanted me to be right next to him,” Locket jokes after the final. “… I think this is a drug, man. At least I can share it with someone. Sometimes it’s lonely there on top.”
During the first nine games, Locket was at a tempo to repeat its 894 season with five touches from 2023, capturing 34 misses for 456 yards and two results. But he went through the rest of the road without finding the end zone, filling three catch and 28 yards when Smith-Nigba became the focal point of the passing game of Seattle. Locket 74 goals were his least since 2018.
“I think the whole season is a victim and a victim of improving the team, it is a victim of improving other players, it is a victim for many different things,” Lockett said at the end of the year. “ “I promise you if you go watch the movie, it’s not.”
Locket, who has missed only two matches due to a career injury and another with Covid-19, ranks second in the history of franchising only at Hall of Famer Steve Largent (661), receiving yards (8,594) and receives Touchdown (61). In December, he became a three -time winner in the annual Steve Steve Award, voted by players in recognition of excellent and outside the field.
“It means so much to me, just to see a NFL player of his caliber to have the modest behavior he has and the selflessness he has and … the sequence shown and the guide he gave to DK And Jaxon and all these guys in this room, she doesn’t go unnoticed, “said defender Jeno Smith.
“He’s one of my best friends. He’s a person I played against in college, so I knew exactly what he could do all the time and just around him, his family, his wife … soon he’ll be a daddy He is a special person, a special person and a special player.
If Seahawks and Lockett split up in the coming weeks, the cowboys in Dallas and Kansas City chiefs would make sense as potential landing places. In addition to having conscientious discounts and lists built to compete, any city may have personal appeal.
Locket’s father lives in Kansas City, and they both participated in the nearby Kansas state, where his younger brother is currently playing a wide successor. Locket spends much of the extra -season in Texas, where he practices real estate as a licensed agent from 2022. The new Cowboys Chief Coach, Brian Schottenheimer, was an offensive Coordinator of Locket for three of his best seasons in Seattle.
While Carol could be interested in bringing Lakett in Las Vegas Raiders, it is a recovery team with a question in a defender and there is no realistic chance of playing for a championship in 2025, something that matters to Locket, as the career’s career It wounds it.
After being prepared by Seahawks in 2015, months after they were almost repeated as the Super Bowl champions, he was never advanced along the divisional circle of the playoffs. They dropped out of the post -season in 2024, but as Locket was talking to reporters after the final, gratitude seemed to cancel the disappointment.
“Maybe this is not the end, maybe it’s the end,” he said. “But I will always be seahawk through and through.”