Tyler Lockett 'Soft'? Seattle Seahawks WR Fires Back at Fans and Critics

The Seattle Seahawks are about to vault into the national spotlight against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with a Sunday morning (6:30 a.m. Seattle time) game in Germany - and it is a spotlight that this team has earned.

Meanwhile, Seahawks veteran receiver Tyler Lockett thinks he's earned something else from Seattle fans: Respect for his toughness.

“A lot of people could call you 'soft' or whatever,'' Lockett, reflecting on a Week 9 play against the Cardinals when he came up short of a first down. "But they don’t understand the things that we see when you’re done playing football. ... Everybody wants you to put your body on the line. For what? Your entertainment? Your amusement, whatever? For us, we put our bodies on the line every single day and so just because you don’t make a first down doesn’t mean whatever the stuff is that people say.”

Lockett mentioned "CTE'' and "all these surgeries'' and "how physical it can be.'' And of course, he's right about all that. He also said that on the play in question - a third-and-16 during which Lockett caught a pass and then avoided absorbing a big hit from a pair of defenders - he thought he'd already gained enough for a first down.

In any event, he said, “This was like one of the first times I fell short of a (first down) and everybody just thinks I always fall short. I just think, for me, people don’t understand how physical the game of football is ...''

Lockett will win this argument because he's lived it - and "business decisions'' are sometimes a part of the game, too. That may be especially true when a guy is 5-10 and 180 (as Lockett is) and has played at a high level for his eight-year NFL career.

Is this "putting Seahawks fans on blast'' or simply offering an important perspective? Either way, Lockett is a key reason why the Seahawks are 6-3 and in first place in the NFC West as they taken their three-game win streak to Germany to oppose QB Tom Brady and the Bucs. ... with Lockett being healthy and available a critical part of any debate.

"This game is also about durability and if you’re not able to go because you’re not healthy, then it’s the next man up,'' he said. "So I try not to get too caught up in it ... They’re just like, ‘You should have done this, this and this.’ So you’ve just got to take it with a grain of salt. But you can’t please anybody, especially the Internet.”

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