He deserved better. Unlike his former Seattle Seahawks brethren, DK Metcalf and Geno Smith, Tyler Lockett was never a locker room issue. He was a better human being than most on and off the field. Lockett should have won a Super Bowl in Seattle, but he didn't.
Instead, his career started just as the Legion of Boom era was unknowingly ending. Lockett was taken in the 2015 draft, just months after Seattle failed to give the ball to Marshawn Lynch near the end of Super Bowl XLIX when the Seahawks lost to the New England Patriots. The wide receiver was released by Seattle in the offseason before the franchise would win its second Super Bowl.
Lockett was bookended, and through no real fault of his own. He became one of the best wideouts in Seahawks history at a time when the team was going from greatness to greatness with a heavy dose of mediocrity in between. Through it all, Tyler Lockett was a great player and great person.
Tyler Lockett deserved to be a part of the Seattle Seahawks' Super Bowl celebration
The shame is that he never tasted a title game. Instead, after being released by Seattle last offseason, he signed with the awful Tennessee Titans and then asked for his release midway through the 2025 season. That may have been the most self-serving thing Lockett ever did in his life. He needed to do so, however.
The issue was that after he was let go, he ended up with former head coach Pete Carroll and the Las Vegas Raiders, who were even worse. The two teams that Lockett played for in the final season of his career went a combined 6-28. The wide receiver was only involved in two of those victories. In other words, in what was likely his last season in the NFL, he went 2-15.
His former team in Seattle was in the midst of a Super Bowl run. Again, Tyler Lockett deserved better. He still does.
What happens with the 33-year-old receiver this offseason? He likely doesn't find a new home. He is a smaller receiver who relies on diminished quickness to get open, and then he doesn't offer any explosiveness after the catch. No Pete Carroll exists in Las Vegas to bring him back, as Carroll was fired after the season ended.
The hope is that he comes back to the Seattle Seahawks and signs a one-day deal to retire as a member of the franchise. He should never have played in a different uniform, but Seattle rightfully made the correct decision to let him go. The best thing would be to have him return and go out the way he should have: As a Seahawk.