By any means necessary: Lockette takes Seahawks playing time over pride
Sep 1, 2014, 10:37 AM | Updated: Sep 2, 2014, 11:14 am
Seattle Seahawks' Ricardo Lockette (83) tries to get past Akeem Auguste during a drill at an NFL football camp practice Wednesday, July 30, 2014, in Renton, Wash. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
To make it to the NFL, you have to be the absolute best of the best; the best player on every team you ever played for. But for those players to make an NFL team, players may have to make a choice between their pride and playing time.
Seahawks wide receiver Ricardo Lockette was a long-shot at best to make it to an NFL camp. He came out of Division II’s Fort Valley State in Georgia. He had speed – teams knew that – but everyone in the NFL has speed.
Lockette bounced around the Seahawks practice squad, was released, signed with the 49ers and then was released before signing with the Hawks again in October of last year.
Lockette said he had to swallow his pride to stick around.
“When I first got here, that was my downfall,” he said. “I always wanted to be the starting receiver.”
He soon realized that there were only so many spots on an NFL team.
“I just matured and I just wanted to play football. ‘Coach, whatever you want me to do, that’s what I’ll do.'”
When the Seahawks asked him to consider special teams, he jumped in.
“They sent me the tapes. This is gunner. This is kickoff. I studied them in the off-season and voila.”
Now, Lockette is Seattle’s gunner on punt returns, it’s how he made the 53-man cut over the weekend. He’s a good backup receiver, but a great punt cover player. He’s too valuable of a special teams player to give up.
The gunner is the player on the outside of the formation that must beat two blockers and make it to the returner first.
“Once I get down the field, I’m thinking ‘OK, I got him, I got him, when is the ball coming’ because I’m looking at him and I can’t see the ball,” he said. “His eyes get bigger and bigger and as soon as I get there, I just take my shot and hope there’s not a flag.”
Lockette now relishes his role on special teams: anything to get in the game.
“If speed and aggression are what it’s going to take to make the team, I have that,” he said. “If it’s going to take hands and it’s going to take great routes, then I have that.”
By any means necessary. That’s his motto for staying in the NFL.
Correction on Sept. 2:
