Ricardo Lockette, the wide receiver for the Seattle Seahawks, is expected to announce his retirement this week. According to various reports, the athlete's decision was influenced by the season-ending injury he sustained last year.
News about Lockette's announcement retirement was first confirmed by Ian Rapaport of the NFL. As noted by the journalist, league sources said that his decision to retire was due to his neck injury.
The incident happened during a game between the Seahawks and Dallas Cowboys in November of 2015. While Lockette was covering a punt, he was hit by Cowboys safety Jeff Heath. Both viewers and his teammates believe that he was blindsided by the Dallas player.
Because of the hit, Lockette suffered a concussion and was carted off the field. On his way out, he held up his made and formed an "L" gesture with his fingers, which some believe means Legion of Boom while others think it stands for Love our Brothers, which is one of the slogans of the Seahawks.
"It was one of the craziest things I've been part of," he told the Seattle Times. "I'm lying 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," he added. "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."
Lockette immediately underwent surgery due to his injury and he initially expected that he will be able to play again after a few weeks of rest. However, his doctor told him that his injury was so serious that he could have died on the field after taking the hit.
"The doctors told me that pretty much my skull, all the muscles, all the ligaments that connect my vertebrae and cartilage between that - so the cartilage is out, the ligaments torn," he told Seattle PI.
"He said if I would have stood up then, the weight of my head, left, right, front, back, I would have died," Lockette added.
