Injured Seahawks wide receiver Ricardo Lockette not only plans to play again, he plans to play at a high level.
Via Jayson Jenks of the Seattle Times, Lockette said last night after he’s not accepting that the neck injury that ended his season might end his career.
“I expect to be a Pro Bowler,” he said.
Lockette stood wearing his neck brace waving a towel before the game, firing up the crowd which was relieved to see him walking, after he had to be hospitalized in Dallas two weeks ago. And he said seeing them hold up their hands in the shape of an “L” was touching, the same gesture he made as he was being carted off the field and a nod toward the team’s “Love our brothers” slogan.
“To have that many people cheer for you and care about you and pray for you, it’s something further than my dreams could reach,” Lockette said. “I’m forever in debt for that. It’s one of the best days of my life.”
Lockette will be in the neck brace another six weeks before he can start rehabbing, but has no second thoughts about returning to a game of such violent collisions.
“It was one of the craziest things I’ve been a part of,” he said. “I’m laying on the ground. You can’t feel your legs. You can’t feel your arms. And you can’t really respond. You don’t really know what’s going to happen in the next couple of seconds. You don’t know if you’re going to black out. You don’t know if you’re ever going to get feeling in your body. You don’t know if this is it. . . .
“You just have a real blank mind, and then all the important things start to matter. You start to think about your family. Am I going to play with my kids again? Just the important stuff. The crazy thing is, once I got my voice back and once I was able to talk again, all I cared about what was winning the game.”
He’s fortunate that he’s able to feel that, and many players are wired the same way. But it’s clear that his own injury has made Lockette more cognizant of his place in the world beyond football, as evidenced by his goodwill gesture to a group of homeless people outside the Dallas hospital.
And that’s the kind of thing that will have people far beyond Seattle rooting for his comeback.