Seahawks’ Tyler Lockett: Just running my route. Geno Smith: Refs have the power on key PI
Tyler Lockett has been called for pass interference before.
Seven times before this, in fact.
Yet all the 148 regular-season games and seven more in the postseason the 32-year-old wide receiver's played in his 10-year Seahawks career, he'd never had an offensive PI flag like the one a side official threw on him at a key point in Seattle's quest to get to 4-0 Monday night at Ford Field.
"I mean, they've called me for pass interferences before," Lockett said at his locker on his way out of Detroit early Tuesday morning following his team's 42-29 loss to the Lions.
"But, I mean, that one, I was just trying to get into my route."
The Seahawks' besieged defense Geno Smith thought he had the biggest of his career-high 38 completions against the Detroit Lions. It was on fourth down at Detroit's 39-yard line. The Seahawks trailed 35-27 with 9 minutes left in a game the offense had been chasing since early in the first quarter.
Smith's roll out right and pass to wide-open Jaxon Smith-Njigba on that sideline gained what appeared to be the first down at the Lions 31. The chase was 31 yards from a potential tie.
But officials ruled Lockett as the farthest outside receiver on the right ran into and continuing driving the Lions' cornerback on that side. It wasn't an obvious call, perhaps a penalty by the strict letter of NFL law.
Instead of the first down the Seahawks punted on the resulting fourth and 13. The Lions drove on Seattle's depleted defense for the game-clinching touchdown that put them back up by two scores.
"Sometimes, if they think it's some type of pick or something like that, or if a guy gets wide open like that, they automatically think it's going to be some type of flag."
Is that what the official told Lockett, that it was a pick of the defender trying to get out to Smith-Njigba.
Lockett chuckled.
"Oh, I didn't talk to him," Lockett said.
After the Seahawks' first loss of the season on a night he completed 38 of 56 passes for 395 yards, all highs for his 12-year career, Smith was less diplomatic about the call than Lockett was.
"They said that he picked the guy," Smith said, "and you probably could see, we all could see, he made no contact with the guy."
The 33-year-old quarterback shrugged.
"I mean, in a situation like that, a critical drive like that, that's kind of sometimes the difference in these games.
"Unfortunately, the refs got that control, got that power."
And the Seahawks got that L, their first loss of the season. Their defense couldn't consistently stop quarterback Jared Goff or the Lions' running game. Goff was a perfect 18 for 18 passing, for 292 yards and two touchdowns. Jahmyr Gibbs ran for two TDs and David Montgomery rushed for another score.
So even if officials hadn't flagged Lockett, even if Smith and their offense continued that drive to tie the game, the Seahawks seemed unlikely to stop Detroit on this night from a winning score, anyway.
"We played a great team," Lockett said.
"For us, we understand we've got three games in 10 days (versus the Giants in Seattle Sunday, then at home vs. San Francisco four days later). So, I mean, we've just got to take what happened, and be ready for the next game."
