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Seattle Seahawks

Seahawks receiver Tyler Lockett expects to be ready for start of season

Seattle Seahawks’ Tyler Lockett, right, tumbles to the turf and injures his right left as Arizona Cardinals’ Brandon Williams tackles him in the first half of an NFL football game, Saturday, Dec. 24, 2016, in Seattle. Lockett said this week he hopes to be ready for the start of training camp in the fall. (Ted S. Warren / Associated Press)
By Bob Condotta Seattle Times

Teammates knelt in prayer and fans held their breath as Tyler Lockett lay on the ground last Dec. 24 in the east end zone at CenturyLink Field, the reality of a gruesome leg injury becoming quickly apparent.

Almost four months later, Lockett makes what might be a surprising admission about that moment – he may have been the calmest person in the building.

“People took it worse than me,” Lockett said of what was eventually diagnosed as a broken fibula and tibia of his right leg. “I didn’t care. It didn’t bother me. I mean I’ve had worse than that and I’ve always been taken care of. It’s always worked out for me.

“It didn’t hurt, it didn’t really bother me. It probably bothered other people. I didn’t feel anything. People felt pain more than I did. I was at a good place, like even when they carried me off it never bothered me at all.”

Lockett’s faith that it would all turn out just fine appears to have been well placed.

Lockett said Thursday that he expects to be ready for the start of the 2017 season.

“I mean I’m sure I’ll be ready,” Lockett said “If I don’t it will be news to me like it’s news to you.”

Aside from that, Lockett’s timetable is a little unclear as he said he isn’t sure if he will take the field at any point during the spring OTAs (Organized Team Activities) and mini-camp or wait until training camp in late July.

“I think I’m at a good place right now,” said Lockett, a third-round pick in 2015 who was completing his second season with the team when he was injured in a loss to Arizona. “I think that it also depends on what the trainers want to do, whether they want to speed up my process or whether they want to take it slow.

“It all depends on what they are looking for me to do, if they want me to do OTAs and mini-camp or do they want me to just wait until August so for me I’m just preparing myself for August and if I get to do OTAs and stuff then hey, that’s cool. But I’ve got the end goal in mind, which is getting myself ready for camp.”

Lockett says the rehab has been pretty straightforward, despite the seriousness of the injury when it happened – he had surgery on the night of the injury, Christmas Eve, and was in the hospital for more than two days.

“It’s pretty much the same as if you have a sprained ankle or like you have like a hurt hamstring,” Lockett said. “It was just they had me strengthening it like being able to do a lot of stuff to be able to strengthen it whether its like jumping a little bit or pulling certain things or whatever the case may be. It’s the same as if I wasn’t hurt. I’ve just got to strengthen my leg to get back to where it needs to be so I can start running.”

Rehab meant Lockett has stayed mostly in Seattle during the off-season instead of spending much time in his native Kansas, which he said has been just fine with him.

“I pretty much stuck here,” he said. “But I wanted to be here. It gave me a chance to see what Seattle had to offer even though it rained a majority of the time. Got to go to Canada, things like that. Obviously (the trainers) had sheets for me to be able to do and I still had a lot of time to be able to go explore and get on ferries and go to like Bainbridge so it was different things – I got on the suspension bridge in Vancouver. So it was things that I normally wouldn’t do that I still go to do.”