Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Tyler Lockett has seen plenty is his lengthy NFL career, but his 10th season in the league is set to bring new experiences.
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The first and most glaring of those fresh encounters is playing under a head coach not named Pete Carroll. Lockett spent all of his first nine seasons in the league playing under Carroll’s regime after the Seahawks drafted the diminutive wide receiver from Kansas State during the third round in 2015. Now Lockett is adjusting to life under first-year head coach Mike Macdonald and new offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb as the team goes through OTA practices.
“It’s definitely a culture shock,” Lockett said. “People say you can learn a new habit in like 21 days. … Imagine learning the habit for 365 days times nine years. It’s one of those things where you really have to change a lot of different stuff, but there’s a lot of good stuff that comes with change as well.”
Lockett said one of the biggest changes is getting to know the ins and outs of the new coaches, and that’s something these spring practices are good for.
“I think the biggest thing that’s different is just the relationships and understanding the different types of coaching and the way that every coach decides to go about it with their approach is different,” he said. “You just got to be able to learn that and adapt to it and learn how to find that comfort and all that different type of stuff. So obviously it’s different, but when you have spring football like this during OTAs, that’s when you kind of work through those kinks.”
The new offense
Lockett, who turns 32 in September, has had plenty of success in his now-decade-long run in Seattle. His 612 receptions, 7,994 receiving yards and 59 receiving touchdowns all rank second in franchise history, only behind Pro Football Hall of Fame and Seahawks Ring of Honor member Steve Largent.
His new offensive coordinator knows a thing or two about successful offensive numbers, too. Grubb spent the past two seasons leading one college football’s top offenses with the UW Huskies. UW ranked first and second in the nation, respectively, in average passing yards the past two seasons. On Montlake, Grubb took advantage of a standout receiver room with three future early-round NFL Draft picks. With the Seahawks, he inherits a talented group headlined by Lockett, DK Metcalf and 2023 first-round pick Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Lockett has liked what he’s seen so far as the team works to install what he described as a complex offense under Grubb.
“I think the tempo, the level of assignments that all of us have with learning the offense, the different things that we can get to at the line of scrimmage, it’s super, super not only sophisticated, but it’s literally detail-oriented,” Lockett said. “So I think we got to really be able to study the playbook and understand the different type of spots, because any of us could be in any given position at any given time, and that’s the cool part about the offense, but it’s also the tough part because that means that everybody has to learn every single spot.”
Lockett and his fellow receivers have also been working closely with new wide receivers coach Frisman Jackson, who coached the same group the past two seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
