Tyler Lockett doesn’t remember how he needed hospitalization. He recalls his lost vacation
Tyler Lockett says his leg is fine, thank you.
He says he was able to do all the Seahawks’ game plan asked of him. That implies his main role was as a decoy in Seattle’s 17-9 victory at Philadelphia Sunday.
Russell Wilson targeted his number-one wide receiver with just two passes. Lockett caught one, for 38 yards. Rookie wide receiver DK Metcalf had a team-high six targets, catches three, for 35 yards and a dropped ball in the end zone that the wind moved on him in the second quarter.
What isn’t fine for Lockett: the bye-week vacation he lost out on.
Instead of getting away with friends and family for a week-long bash, he had to spend two nights in a Bay Area hospital with a severe leg contusion following Seattle’s previous game.
“Everybody else got a bye week. And I didn’t,” Lockett said with a chuckle following his team’s seventh win in eight games.
“I had everything planned out. Bought everybody’s flights. And then to not go, you know how that feels.”
Yes, even NFL stars banking a $31.8 million contract extension get tripped up by non-refundable airline tickets and house rentals when real life happens.
In this league, real life is a brutal blow to the shin that causes such acute swelling doctors fear compartment syndrome and prohibit you from traveling home with your teammates for days.
Lost vacation and plane-tickets days.
“Nope, non-refundable. So you know how that goes,” he said. “You know how that is. You bought a trip. You got everybody else’s flights. You’ve got a house. You’ve got everything set up.
“And then you get hurt. So, it’s just...that’s how it’s supposed to happen.
“I’m not complaining.”
So maybe we all should buy that airline insurance with the yes in the online check box, eh?
Here’s what else is real-world: How Lockett played through the fourth quarter of Seattle’s previous game at San Francisco and finished with three catches for 26 yards, when he had a shin contusion coach Pete Carroll that night called a “pretty severe situation.”
Asked how exactly he got hurt, Lockett shook his head Sunday.
“I don’t even remember the game. They gave me too many pills, to be honest with you,” Lockett said.
“So I don’t remember much of the game.”
He does, however, remember the generosity of Seahawks chair Jody Allen in getting him home.
The successor to her late brother Paul Allen as the head of the franchise sent her team plane to the Bay Area to fetch Lockett home from Stanford Medical Center the Wednesday after the Monday night win over the 49ers in Santa Clara.
“I thought that was dope,” Lockett said. “They didn’t have to do that, at all. So the fact that they did it, thought that was really, really cool, was really thoughtful. It shows how much they truly care about you, as a person, and how they truly want the best for you.
“That’s what I love about the organization. They’ve always taken care of me, in every single thing that I’ve done, through the good and through the bad.”
Lockett has had two particularly disruptive hospitalizations following major injuries in Seahawks games.
On Christmas Eve 2016, Lockett broke his leg going for a pass near the goal line in a game against Arizona at CenturyLink Field. Horrified teammates Doug Baldwin and Wilson prayed over him on the field.
Lockett spent that Christmas Day in a hospital bed in Seattle. His family was with him—not that he couldn’t really tell. He was trapped in a sleepy fog caused by pain-killing medication following a pre-Santa surgery to fix his broken tibia and fibula.
“I don’t remember Christmas,” he said the following preseason, rubbing his chin. “I opened probably one present, and I was halfway asleep off those Oxys.”
Sunday, Lockett said: “The other stuff that I deal with doesn’t bother me, beacuse that was probably the worst thing that I’ve got through so far.”
So compared to that, this even-severely bruised shin and doctors’ fears of compartment syndrome was relatively no big whoop.
“Nah,” he said, “as long as I’m not going to die I’m not scared of nothing.”
Now Seattle’s leading receiver with 63 receptions and 831 yards with six touchdowns this season gets eight days between Sunday’s win and the 9-2 Seahawks’ next game.
That’s home against Minnesota (8-3) Monday Dec. 2.
This story was originally published November 24, 2019 at 5:14 PM.
