RENTON — During a typical week, as the Seahawks are wrapping up their final walk-through practice the day before a game, Tyler Lockett will approach Sanjay Lal with an atypical request.
“Can we watch one more game together?” Lockett will ask.
Lal has spent 15 years as an NFL assistant coach. He’s worked with dozens and dozens of productive wide receivers. Few, if any, of them are as committed to their craft as he’s seen from Lockett this season.
Lal is happy to oblige Lockett’s request. Of course he is. And Lal knows he might learn as much from Lockett as Lockett learns from him when they squeeze in one last film study session the day before a game.
“He won’t go into a game without feeling completely comfortable,” said Lal, in his first season as the Seahawks passing game coordinator and receivers coach. “He has to know how defensive backs play and how the structure of the defense is going to take him away, and he will know that better than any receiver I’ve been around.”
There shouldn’t be too many surprises Saturday when the Seahawks travel to the Bay Area for an NFC wild-card playoff game against the rival 49ers (1:30 p.m., FOX). Geno Smith and Seahawks receivers generally know how the 49ers secondary will defend them, just as the 49ers generally know how the Seahawks will want to attack them through the air.
That won’t stop the Seahawks from trying to come up with a few new wrinkles. And chances are, Lockett will have direct input in that.
“When you watch film with Tyler, he talks like a coach and he talks like a QB,” Lal said. “He’ll say, ‘Oh, look, when I take this release, it causes this, which allows me to do this.’ It’s really very impressive. And a week doesn’t go by where he doesn’t come up with a play that actually gets into the game plan.”
Often, the concepts or plays that Lockett suggests are not specifically designed for himself. He might find a way to manipulate the defense’s coverage scheme with his route-running that allows, say, DK Metcalf to get into a preferred one-on-one matchup.
It’s that kind of unselfishness that has endeared him to so many coaches and teammates for so long in Seattle. Lockett, 30, is the longest-tenured Seahawk, and he took over as the captain of the offense for the first time this season in the wake of Russell Wilson’s departure to Denver.
“For him to be such a selfless individual, never really making it about himself, I think sometimes that hurts him because he doesn’t get the recognition he deserves,” Smith said this week. “But he is one of the best (in the NFL).”
Lal has a reputation as a coach who demands precision from his receivers. Routes should be run to his exact specification. But Lal has had to learn to compromise some in that regard with Lockett this season, recognizing that one of Lockett’s real strengths is his ability to adapt on the fly based on how defenses cover him.
“I can’t be as regimented,” Lal said. “It has to be the style I like within Tyler’s great feel and his instincts to get open. So it’s been a good mesh of those two things, which has been really cool to see.”
Lockett has been remarkably consistent and durable in his career, posting four consecutive 1,000-yard receiving seasons.
In 16 games this season, he had 84 catches for 1,033 yards and nine touchdowns, and he played the final two games after having surgery Dec. 19 to repair a broken bone in his right hand. He was also slowed by a shin injury the past two weeks.
“You talk about toughness, this season he’s shown that,” Smith said. “Not the biggest guy, not going to intimidate anybody physically, but if you line up against him, you’ll know exactly who he is and what he can do. I’ve seen him time and time again give guys pure hell out there.”
Steve Largent is the only other Seahawks receiver to post four straight 1,000-yard seasons — and, yes, Lockett and Largent share a hometown (Tulsa, Oklahoma) and a birth date (Sept. 28).
On Sunday, Largent was in attendance at the Seahawks-Rams game to present to Lockett the team’s most prestigious award (named after Largent), as voted on by teammates and awarded to the player who best exemplifies the spirit, dedication and integrity of the team. It’s the second straight year Lockett has won it.
After practice on Thursday, Lockett was presented the Good Guy Award, given to the player for professional by the local chapter of the Pro Football Writers of America.
For all his accomplishments on the field, Lockett has often talked about wanting to be defined by more than football. He published a book of poetry a few years ago, and he won an Emmy last year for his NFL Network feature revisiting the Tulsa race massacre of 1921.
“When they talk about who you are as a person, that’s even better, because you start realizing the energy that you give, and the light that always shines within you through your faith in God,” Lockett said. “So it’s just cool to see the type of impact you have. When you see life through the lens of impact rather than through performance, you start appreciating stuff a lot more.”
Lockett also obtained his real estate license last year, first in Washington, then Texas. So far, he has sold one home in Sammamish (for $3.25 million) and said he helped close on a commercial property this fall.
“For a real estate agent, I think he’s doing a great job at playing wide receiver,” Smith joked this week.
Seahawks safety Quandre Diggs and Lockett have been close friends for more than a decade, since they played against each other in the Big 12. After Diggs suffered a devastating leg injury in Arizona in the final game of the season last year, Lockett traveled with Diggs to Green Bay for surgery.
“I couldn’t ask for a better friend, a better teammate, somebody that I consider a brother that I know I can call at any moment and I know he’ll be there for me,” Diggs said. “When I had surgery, he was right there beside me. When I woke up, he was right there. …
“He’s never been a selfish guy. He’s never been one of those guys that’s asking for the ball or demanding the ball, going to the media, doing those things. He’s just been a stand-up guy his whole career, and that’s who he’ll continue to be.”