Shin injury, the flu have hampered Tyler Lockett in recent weeks, but Seahawks still finding ways to throw
Tyler Lockett has been dealing with the flu for nearly a week. It hit him Wednesday, he said, and he’s been able to eat throughout the week, but his energy is drained.
“I just want to go to sleep,” the Seattle Seahawks’ receiver said after Monday night’s 37-30 win over the Vikings. “You know how it feels when you have the flu. ... I’m just waiting for it to finally end so I can be OK.”
Seattle’s top receiver has had an unfortunate stretch. He spent two nights in a Bay Area hospital with a shin contusion following the Seahawks’ win over San Francisco midway through November after posting what was then a season-low 26 yards on three catches.
He remarkably returned for Seattle’s trip to Philadelphia, but snagged just one catch for 38 yards on just two targets, matching another season-low.
And against Minnesota, Lockett didn’t record a catch in a game for the first time since Week 12 of 2017. He was targeted just three times.
“He’ll be better this week, if he can stay away from (the flu),” Carroll said. “I know a lot of teams had this flu thing, and it was legit.”
“It was pretty bad,” Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson said. “I don’t know if we’ve ever had that many guys miss practice and go home. Not just miss practice, but have to go home for it. It’s that time of year, I guess. But, I thought all the guys played great ...
“Tyler didn’t get the ball tonight unfortunately, but we were trying to get it to him, and they were just trying to stop him, but it opened up a lot of other guys, so that was really good news for us, too.”
Somehow, even with Lockett reeling from injuries and illness, the Seahawks are finding ways to throw the ball consistently.
“We’ve always got players,” Seahawks rookie DK Metcalf said. “When one person goes down, we know the next person has to step up.”
Wilson finished 21-of-31 passing for 240 yards — his most in the past three games, and just below his season average of 267.1 — and a pair of touchdowns. He just targeted his tight ends and running backs as much as his receivers.
“It was just a collective effort,” Wilson said. “I thought Schotty (offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer) did a great job calling the game. We had so many different plays and so many different things that we were trying to do to give them different looks.
“And they were really struggling with it for the most part, and we were able to really execute in the second half.”
Metcalf led the Seahawks in receiving, catching six of seven targets for 75 yards — though he lost his second fumble in three games in the fourth quarter, which eventually led to a Vikings touchdown. David Moore caught two passes — including a 60-yard touchdown on blown coverage near the end of the third quarter — on two targets, and Josh Gordon and Jaron Brown each caught their only targets.
But, otherwise, Wilson spread 15 of his 31 passing attempts to his tight end and running backs.
Tight end Jacob Hollister was targeted eight times, hauling in six catches for 44 yards. Running back Rashaad Penny caught four passes on five targets, including a 13-yard touchdown in the third quarter, and running back Chris Carson caught one of his two targets.
“They kept playing two-high shell, just super deep,” Wilson said. “They didn’t want any shots thrown on them. So we said, ‘OK,’ and we’ll just run it and do what we do really well. Sure enough, we just kept going, kept going with it.
“And then sure enough they came up occasionally and we hit some big plays down the field to D-Mo (Moore) and some other plays. There were just some great plays throughout the entire game.”
After entering halftime trailing by a touchdown, the Seahawks scored 24 straight points in less than 12 minutes, building a 34-17 lead moments into the fourth quarter.
Though that lead nearly evaporated, and the Seahawks want to continue working on “controlling the ball and holding onto the ball and executing our plays” as the regular season winds down, Metcalf said, the confidence in the offense in close games remains.
“We’re resilient,” Seahawks left tackle Duane Brown said. “We’re battle tested. We’ve been in a lot of games like this throughout the year. We wouldn’t like to make it this way, but we were up by 17 (points). You get a turnover there, and they go down and score. We’d like to a play a little bit cleaner, but we always have faith and we always have trust in each other in these close ballgames.
“Guys make big-time plays when it’s time to. That’s just been our identity.”
