LOS ANGELES -- With two minutes left in Sunday's game, Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Tyler Lockett made a surprise appearance on the field to return a Los Angeles Rams punt.
Lockett suffered a sprained knee injury with 7:35 left in the second quarter and had been sidelined. But late in the game, he tested the knee out and decided he would try to give it a go.
He called for a fair catch. And then on the first play of the possession, Lockett ran a go route down the left sideline, hauling in a 53-yard bomb from Russell Wilson.
"It hurts a little bit, but pain is only temporary," Lockett said afterwards. "You’ve got to kill me in order for me not to go back out there.
"I’m not going to stop fighting. I’m not going to [quit]. Like I said, I’ve got to be in a coffin in order not to come back because I can play with anything that I have, regardless of what it is. That’s just how it is for me."
Said teammate Jermaine Kearse, "I make a lot of fun of him for being like a little kid, but that kid’s got heart. He’s real tough. For him to just come out and then come back in and be able to make that play at the end, that’s heart. That’s toughness."
The Seahawks fell to the Rams, 9-3, but Lockett was a bright spot on offense. Offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell sent him deep often, and Lockett caught four balls on four targets for 99 yards. He also drew an 18-yard pass interference penalty.
Before the 53-yard reception, Lockett was demonstrative in the huddle, trying to fire his teammates up.
Asked what he was telling them, Lockett said, "Forget about everything that happened. We can have the worst every series possible, but on that last series, it’s the only one that counts. It’s the only one that matters. So it’s getting everybody up and going, fired up, regardless of what calls went against us and what calls didn’t go in our favor. We’re just going to go out there and fight until the end.
"We ended up losing, but it’s not anything that’s going to hurt us. It’s going to make us better."
Lockett's focus now is on getting healthy before the Seahawks take on the San Francisco 49ers in Week 3.
"[The coaches] believed in me and knew I wasn’t going to go out there and do anything stupid as far as making it any worse," he said. "... And they trusted me to go back in there, and I’m thankful for that."