Former Seahawks WR Ricardo Lockette: Super Bowl loss prepared me for retirement
May 12, 2016, 1:20 PM | Updated: 3:06 pm
A traumatic neck injury suffered on the field last year has caused Ricardo Lockette to retire from the NFL. (AP)
(AP)
Former Seahawks wide receiver Ricardo Lockette announced his retirement Thursday afternoon, saying that he has no regrets, but that he feels at least slightly responsible for his career-ending injury.
Lockette, who entered the league as an undrafted free agent, played in 34 games with one start in his five-year career. He excelled as a special-teams gunner and recorded 22 receptions for 451 yards and four touchdowns.
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Lockette was injured last November against the Cowboys while on punt coverage. A hard hit by Jeff Heath gave Lockette a concussion and caused ligament and disc damage in his neck. He remained motionless on the field for several minutes while being tended to by medical personnel and was placed a stretcher and into an ambulance. He had surgery the next day. Heath called and apologized after the incident, with Lockette responding that there was no reason to say sorry.
Lockette said Thursday, among other things, he hopes to teach youth how to properly tackle in the future, though he’s never blamed anybody for the injury that he has said nearly killed him.
“I made a mistake and hopefully I can teach them or help them to learn the proper way to play football,” he said at a news conference at the Seahawks’ headquarters in Renton. “Because I feel like my injury might have had something to do with me. I guess we always feel that way because we’re our biggest critics, but I don’t regret it. If it happened again, I’d take him on. That’s how I feel. No regrets.”
When asked to clarify his thoughts about being responsible for the injury, Lockette said he is a perfectionist and always feels like he could have done something better.
“I feel like if I could have knocked that dude down quicker that was distracting me, then there would have been no blindside,” he said. “Or, if I would have just ran through him and just sped off than he couldn’t have caught me. So there’s always something I could have done.”
Lockette was part of the Seahawks’ Super Bowl XLVII-winning team, but may be best known for being the intended target on the deciding interception in Seattle’s Super Bowl loss the following year. He said Thursday that the loss was extremely difficult to get over and that adversity ultimately helped him with his decision to retire.
“Overcoming that adversity prepared me for this,” he said. “It prepared me for this so when I got to this point, I’d seen adversity before. It wasn’t foreign to me. It was something I recognize and I accepted the challenge, and now I’m getting over it.”
Lockette had held out hope of returning to the field but said ultimately the decision wasn’t hard because “I love my family and I’d rather walk.” He said the injury will keep him from doing some “small things” in the future, such as it likely being difficult to lift heavy things or play sports with his kids.
“There’s a lot of things I can’t do, but what I can do is inspire and motivate,” he said.
He called it a “tough day” but didn’t want anyone’s pity.
“It’s not a sad day for me, life goes on,” he said. “I never really wanted to be an Olympic track star or an NFL player, I just wanted to be great. I just wanted to be great at something. I wanted to make my family proud and hopefully I’ve done that. So whatever the next step for me is – I’m not quite sure what it is, and I’m not embarrassed to say that because I feel like I have time. I’m only 29. But I know what I will do, I will dedicate my time to helping those in need: the homeless, battered women, domestic violence – fighting against that. And just speaking to as many kids as I possibly can because I think that’s where it all starts. It starts with the kids.”
