Tyler Lockett describes having COVID-19: ‘I could barely move. I was very, very anxious’
Tyler Lockett doesn’t exactly think having COVID is like having a cold.
“It was very exhausting. I could barely move. My throat was hurting. I had chills. My chest was hurting. I was very, very anxious,” the Seahawks’ top wide receiver said Thursday of having the coronavirus and missing his team’s key loss at the Los Angeles Rams Dec. 21.
“My mind was just wandering because I was probably thinking too much. I was throwing up. I threw up the first day a couple times, but just once after that, I just had no energy, so I was barely eating.”
Lockett is vaccinated. He said he thinks he lost about 8 pounds in the six days between his positive test for COVID-19 the Thursday before the Rams game and testing negative seven days later.
He returned to play last weekend, catches three passes on six targets for 30 yards in Seattle’s 25-24 loss to Chicago. That eliminated the Seahawks (5-10) from the playoffs.
Four days before he tested positive Dec. 16, Lockett joined Hall of Famer Steve Largent as the only Seahawks with three straight seasons with 1,000 yards receiving. Lockett passed that plateau while catching a 55-yard touchdown pass from Russell Wilson to break open Seattle’s blowout win at Houston Dec. 12.
Lockett needs 5 yards Sunday when the Seahawks (5-10) play their final home game of the season against Detroit (2-12-1) to reach a career high in yard receiving. He has 1,053. With 47 yards he will become the seventh Seahawks to get 1,110 yards receiving in a season.
His next catch will set him past Darrell Jackson for fifth place on Seattle’s career receptions list with 442.
He considered it something of an accomplishment he played last weekend in the snow against the Bears after coming back from exhaustion from COVID.
“I was just tired and exhausted,” Lockett said. “I don’t want to say I had breathing problems, but I couldn’t fully breathe out of my chest like I wanted to. You know how you just get that big air? Sometimes I got it, sometimes I didn’t. Again, I felt like I was good with breathing.
“It was just very unfortunate. I was out for a whole week. We had a big game versus the Rams that kind of determined whether we could go to the playoffs or not. I couldn’t play, so I had to sit there and watch as well as get tested positive every single day.”
Coach Pete Carroll said Lockett being on the COVID list was a large reason Seattle’s offense managed just 10 points against the Rams. Los Angeles and All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey focused coverage on Seattle receiver DK Metcalf without the threat of Lockett breaking the game open elsewhere on the field in Inglewood, California, that Tuesday.
The NFL rescheduled the game from Sunday after the Rams had 29 players on the COVID list. L.A. got a lot of those players back for the rescheduled game, including Ramsey.
“The delay helped them,” Carroll said. “It didn’t hamper us — other than not having Tyler.
“Tyler’s one of the best players we’ve ever seen.”
A mental grind
Lockett said it became a mental challenge to get through the coronavirus and off the COVID-19 list. That’s because he tested every day after his positive result, which came the day after a negative test at Seahawks headquarters in Renton.
“My chest was hurting a little bit. I felt like I had a little cold on Wednesday, but I was negative on Wednesday,” he said. “I figured it was just raining so much here in Seattle, we flew to Houston and then it was hot, the next day we played, and it was a little cold in Houston because they opened up the roof (on a 55-degree day). Then we came back, and it was really cold and really raining. I just figured it was maybe because the weather’s been changing and all that different stuff.
“Granted, I don’t wear the right clothes during the weather,” the native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, said.
He said the night before he tested positive he had chills.
“That’s when I kind of feel like I had it,” he said. “Like I said, my throat was hurting, my chest was hurting, and that’s when they told me I tested positive. I probably didn’t start actually feeling like myself probably until maybe towards the end of Tuesday (the day of the Rams game), beginning of Wednesday and Thursday.
“But I got this IV, the monoclonal (antibodies) thing. I had gotten that on Wednesday, and that’s when I really started feeling great.
“Thursday, I tested negative.”
He needed two negative tests to get off the COVID list. That did not happen until Dec. 23, two days after the rescheduled Rams game.
“I think if anything, that’s what hurts your mental. It was one thing to be tested positive on Thursday, but then to be positive again Friday and be positive again Saturday and then be positive again Sunday and Monday and then Tuesday,” he said.
“You’re starting off your day seeing three positive tests. That’s the hard part.
“Every day, you’re building yourself up only to start back over the next day. In the same boat of saying, ‘Bro, am I ever going to get through this?’”
Appreciative
Last year, Lockett considered opting out of the Seahawks’ 2020 season over his concerns with catching the coronvirus and spreading it to vulnerable family members.
That and now having COVID-19 puts the milestones he could achieve Sunday, or in Seattle’s final game of the season Jan. 9 at Arizona — and puts football — in perspective.
“The thing about it is, once you come down with COVID-19, you start realizing none of this stuff matters because you really just want to beat it and move past it,” Lockett said. “I think sometimes it makes you take a step back because we get so caught up in all these accomplishments and all these things that we care about, and we don’t even realize that without our health none of it even matters.
“Being able to come back, you want to have a different perception and a different viewpoint of how you see things, but now I’m just thankful for more so each day that I get. How can I make the best out of it?”
Lockett was asked if having COVID-19 has changed how he views the NFL’s changing protocols and handling of the coronavirus the last two seasons during the pandemic.
“It makes you frustrated as an individual because when you’ve dealt with the symptoms of COVID-19, and you’ve seen how it was on you, it’s like we really don’t know how it’s going to affect other people,” he said.
“For me, yeah, it sucked seeing people say, ‘Is Tyler going to play? Is Tyler going to play? I need him to help my fantasy (team).’ I’m just trying to make it through this.
“People forget — people just see COVID-19 as whatever. But if you actually get it or you go through it or other people in your family go through it, you see how detrimental it is and you see how people do die from this stuff.”
