RENTON — Tyler Lockett sounded last month like he’d played his last game for the Seahawks.
Since then, they’ve hired a new offensive coordinator. They have a new path for 2025. They have to re-work or shed contracts to get under the salary cap by exactly one month from now.
So in the five weeks since Lockett said thank yous to just about every employee down to the cooks in the team kitchen immediately following the 2024 season finale, is the 32-year-old, 10-year veteran wide receiver going to be on the only NFL he’s known again in 2025?
“I think we’re working through that right now,” coach Mike Macdonald said Tuesday, after formally introducing Klint Kubiak as Seattle’s new offensive coordinator.
“But those decisions will happen probably when the time comes,” Macdonald said, “in the next month or two.”
That time will come perhaps before March 12. That’s the first day of the new league year. It’s when all NFL teams have to have the contracts for their top 51 players fit under the league’s salary cap.
Seattle is about $14 million over the expected cap of $280 million. The team was about twice that until last week when they restructured the contract of Pro Bowl defensive end Leonard Williams.
The Seahawks could save $17 million by releasing Lockett. That move alone would get them in cap compliance.
He talked after the final game of the 2024 season Jan. 5 at the Los Angeles Rams as if he thinks that may happen.
“That could be the last time you put on the jersey,” Lockett said.
“The cool thing is, the beginning of my career it started off against the Rams (in 2015), and maybe the last game of my Seahawks career, possibly, it ended against the Rams.”
He shrugged.
Lockett turns 33 in September. He said he plans on playing an 11th NFL season in 2025. He is entering the final year of his contract.
His salary-cap charge on the final year of his current contract is scheduled to be $30,895,000. That’s the Seahawks’ third-highest, behind only quarterback Geno Smith ($44.5 million) and fellow wide receiver DK Metcalf ($31.9 million).
Lockett is assuredly not going to be playing with a $30.9 million cap charge in 2025.
He knows it will take general manager John Schneider and Macdonald to see the value and need in keeping what’s become their third wide receiver at a cost that’s reflective of the contributions he’s made over 10 Seattle seasons in the offense, locker room and community — but also of the fact Jaxon Smith-Njigba (10 years younger) and Metcalf (five years younger) are now entrenched as this team’s top receiving targets for quarterback Geno Smith.
In second NFL year since Seattle drafted him in the first round, Smith-Njigba tied Lockett’s team record with 100 catches this past season.
Asked Jan. 5 if Lockett would accept a restructured contract with a salary far lower than the $10 million he’s scheduled to earn for 2025 to play for the Seahawks next season.
His answer suggested he’s going to compare what Seattle says, if the team offers him anything, to what other teams might offer.
“Ahh…that’s an agent question,” Lockett said of his representatives, his uncle Aaron Lockett plus Andrew Kessler of the Athletes First agency. “I think there’s going to be a lot of conversations…
“It’s easy to say that ‘We want you back,’ (which no one directly has) but you still have to be able to have those conversations and figure out what’s going to work, what’s not going to work, what’s the role going to be, all that type of stuff.”
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