Commentary: Why the Seahawks’ Tyler Lockett may be primed for another great season

RENTON, Wash. – There are a few things you can call Seahawks receiver Tyler Lockett: The team’s most productive draft pick since 2012? Probably. The franchise record holder for catches in a season? Definitely. A surefire Ring of Honor member down the road? Seems likely.

Old? Eh, not quite yet.

It’s true that Lockett is about to enter Year 10 in the NFL, where the average player fails to play four full seasons. And in late September the Kansas State product will turn 32, an age some might interpret as the end of one’s prime – or at least close. But history has shown that this isn’t necessarily the period in which receivers hit the wall. A lot of the time it’s when they barrel right through it.

Jerry Rice, the consensus greatest receiver of all time, may have had his best year at age 33, when he had 1,848 receiving yards – 278 more than his previous best. In the seven healthy games Terrell Owens played at 32, he averaged 109.0 yards per contest – the most of his career.

Smaller players such as Tim Brown, Steve Largent and DeSean Jackson showed no drop-off when they were Lockett’s age. Does that mean the best is yet to come? Not necessarily, but Lockett’s best is likely far from done.

There aren’t a lot of players in the league similar to Lockett, who has used his 5-foot-10, 182-pound frame to rack up 7,994 receiving yards – 113th most in NFL history. He’s never made a Pro Bowl or All-Pro team as a receiver, but he has had more long-term output than many who have.

The man has averaged 16 games per season in his nine-year career, never playing fewer than 15. And in the past six seasons he has tallied at least 894 receiving yards, racking up more than 1,000 four times.

Now, if you’re holding a pessimism detector, it might start beeping at the fact that his 52.6 receiving yards per game last season were 12 fewer than the season before, and nearly 21 fewer than in 2021. But that’s less likely due to him battling age so much as it was him battling a bad hamstring, which precluded him from practicing much of the season.

Still, if the Seahawks are going to compete for a playoff spot, they can’t afford a slip in production from one of, if not the most, reliable offensive source on the roster. This is a team that the sportsbooks picked to finish below .500, much in part to last season’s defensive shortcomings.

So the “O” will likely have to be the primary player in a playoff berth. Tyler expects to do his part, skeptics and all.

“I still got time to get better, still got time to work on my game,” Lockett said. “Obviously, a lot of times when you get to Year 10, people say you’re on a decline, but that gives me just enough more energy, if not motivation, just to be able to keep going and take my game to another level. “

Hall of fame receiver Randy Moss’ best season came in Year 10, when he caught an NFL-record 23 touchdown passes with the Patriots. Largent’s best season – and the only one in which he was a first-team All-Pro – came in Year 10.

Yes, these are first-ballot hall of famers with whom it’s probably unfair to compare Lockett. But the point is that the body doesn’t break down the way some might think at this point in players’ careers.

Even so, Lockett knows he isn’t the 22-year-old who didn’t even have to stretch in the first few seasons of his career. His body is changing. Just not necessarily for the worse.

“Really the only change (that) I feel is just more maintenance, more taking care of the body. It’s not like I could just put my stuff on and go out there and just practice … Now it’s like, ‘All right, let’s go do the massages, let’s go do some of the chiropractic work, the dry needling, the suction cups,’ like all those different types of things to be able to get yourself right.” Lockett said. “The biggest part about this game, as we all know, is availability, and it’s durability. If you’re not available, then that’s when people say, ‘Oh, he’s getting older.’

“But the more and more you make yourself available to practice, make yourself available to play in the games, you give yourself a chance to be able to continue to play as long as you want to play.”

Lockett is getting older, no doubt. But suggestions that he’s past his prime?

Those could get old fast.