After Seahawks release, Tyler Lockett will play his 11th NFL season — for Tennessee Titans
Tyler Lockett will play on — as a Titan.
The popular, now-former Seahawks wide receiver and longest-tenured player at 10 years until Seattle released him for salary-cap reasons last month has found a home for his 11th NFL season. Lockett announced Wednesday night he was signing a contract to play the 2025 season with the Tennessee Titans.
Lockett will turn 33 this September, the month he begins playing in the regular season for the first time for a team other than Seattle.
“I’m excited to be a Tennessee Titan!!” Lockett wrote on X/Twitter Wednesday night, breaking the news himself online. “I’m super thankful and grateful Let’s get it!! God you get all the glory!! #Thankful #Grateful #GodGetsAllTheGlory”
Lockett’s contract with the Titans is $4 million. He has a chance with incentives and bonuses to earn $6 million. That’s according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Tennessee went 3-14 last season. The Titans are expected to get a new franchise quarterback in Cam Ward as the first pick in the NFL draft Thursday.
The Titans are going to host the Seahawks this coming regular season for a game in Nashville.
Why Seahawks cut Tyler Lockett
The Seahawks released Lockett March 5. That was to save $17 million against their salary cap for 2025. This would have been the final, non-guaranteed year of Lockett’s contract with Seattle.
He’d known for months, even back to after the 2023 season, his time with Seattle might be ending.
“Obviously, even when I got the chance to come back here this (2024) year and start this new regime, build this new team that Mike (coach Mike Macdonald) wants to build, I got a chance to be a part of that and I got a chance to be able to come back,” Lockett said Jan. 3 following his final Seahawks game. “Because I didn’t know I was going to come back for this season.
“Yeah, I mean, it went through my mind that the Vikings (game Dec. 23, Seattle’s 27-24 home loss) could have been my last home game here,” Lockett said. “It went through my mind that maybe this could be my last Thursday practice, or my last Friday practice, you know with being part of the team.”
Lockett played a reduced role with fewer opportunities last season. He dropped to the third receiving option behind DK Metcalf and Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Lockett had his fewest receptions (49) and fewest touchdowns (two) in seven seasons in 2024. Smith-Njigba, the team’s first-round pick in the 2023 draft, emerged to tie Lockett’s Seahawks record with 100 receptions last season.
Lockett said late last season “it sucks” people believed his skills had declined to the point the Seahawks no longer needed him.
Then in the same week last month, the Seahawks released Lockett and traded DK Metcalf to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a second-round pick in this year’s draft.
That was after Lockett earned over $90 million in 10 seasons playing for team that selected the former Kansas State record-breaking wide receiver and kick returner in the third round of the 2015 NFL draft. Lockett became an All-Pro and Pro Bowl kick returner in his rookie season.
Lockett went from 122 targets in 2023 season, his fifth consecutive year with at least 100, to just 74 in 17 last season. His catches went from that Seahawks record 100 in 2020 to 79 in 2023 to 49 last season.
He vowed at the end of last season to play an 11th year, somewhere. The native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, also vowed Seattle will always be home for him.
He’s recently married, in July 2023 to Lauren Jackson. They’ve been anticipating the arrival this spring of their first child, a baby girl.
He’s started a successful real-estate career in the last several years. He’s into spoken word. He’s active philanthropically across Western Washington and in his hometown of Tulsa.
That’s the hometown of Seahawks legend and Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Steve Largent. In December, Lockett won the team’s Steve Largent Award for the third time. The Seahawks give the Largent Award annually after a player vote. It is given to the player or coach who, the team states, “best exemplifies the spirit, dedication and integrity of the Seahawks.”
Lockett, Russell Wilson and early 2000s fullback Mack Strong are the only players to win the Largent Award three times. Strong won it five times.
“I think it’s incredible,” Lockett said, “because I think this year it might have been a little bit more meaningful to me just because, like I said, I know the sacrifices that I’ve made and the things I’ve had to accept in order to make this season work for me.”
This story was originally published April 23, 2025 at 9:59 PM.
