TYLER LOCKETT: What up, what up?
Q. How long does it take you to do the thousand tennis balls a day that you catch a thousand tennis balls a day?
TYLER LOCKETT: I don't catch a thousand, I don't know how many I catch.
Q. They said that on the TV broadcast?
TYLER LOCKETT: I don't TV like that except it's TV shows or movies. I do whatever I feel is necessary. I do whatever I have to do to feel comfortable within my approach to the games, my hand-eye coordination.
I think a lot of those things kind of help. Some people don't see it that way because you're catching a football but for me if you catch a tennis ball, if you catch something so much smaller it's easier to catch a football. For me it's hand-eye coordination allowing my hands to be able to see the ball and be able to move accordingly.
Q. You and DK are rarely injured. Are you telling him to take it easy this week?
TYLER LOCKETT: DK is a pro. He understands what he needs to do to be able to get himself right and be able to position his self and go out and play at a high level. He's in year six and been in these situations before where if he needs to practice or he felt the need to then he would practice if he needed to.
If he feels like he just needs to do walk through he'll do that, whatever it is that he knows that he needs to do to be able to get right, that's exactly what he'll do and I think, you know, everybody trusts him knowing that he's going to always be ready and prepared to play.
Q. You've done that when you had injuries where you barely can practice and still play. What's the challenge of that as a player to get ready with minimal, if any, reps?
TYLER LOCKETT: I think mentally, it's a different approach. Sometimes we're always used to being able to practice the whole time but your approach changes. Sometimes the film study changes because watching the film and watching the practice is how you get yourself ready for the game and so sometimes you tap into that a little bit more.
Sometimes you tap into, like for me, I catch JUGS a little bit more. I do some of the fundamental stuff if I can't practice. Some of those little things that you have to really be in tune with in order to go out there and still be able to play without getting those reps.
Q. A lot of veteran receivers are getting traded around the league. Curious what it means for you to still be on the same team and still be contributing to a winning team?
TYLER LOCKETT: Yeah, I mean for me all I can do is take advantage of the opportunities that I'm given and just be blessed to be in a simple position that I'm at. Obviously you hear people say like, you, know you're going to be where your feet are and you make the best out of each and every situation.
I think the hardest part is this isn't high school, right. This isn't middle school. This isn't college where you know you're going to be at this school for however long and so there's just some things that, you know, you can't control, and, yeah, that part sucks about it. Because you know, it's hard to be able to come in and then you don't know what's going to happen or people are talking or whatever but that's just life, right.
So you've just got to be able to focus on like what I tell people is like however long you want to play, focus on that number. Can't get caught up in who the team is or anything like that. You just have to be able to focus on that number because if you want to play for eight years, then you just got to be able to go hard for those eight years and it might be on three, four, five different teams.
You might be on one team but you can't control the business aspect of what everybody upstairs is just going to be able to say.
Q. What's your number?
TYLER LOCKETT: I don't know, I wear number 16 right now. Like I said, I just play each year that I can. Obviously everybody wants to leave on their own accord rather than the NFL saying that they are done with you.
But as long as I feel like I can still play at a high level which I can taking advantage of every opportunity, and also just understanding you know, as you get older and as people view you older, reliability is really a big thing.
Like you don't know how many targets you're going to get or you don't know how much you're going to be involved but it's about when your name is called, are you being efficient; are you making those plays; are you helping the team win.
So those are things that happen that you see as you get older but for me I focus on trying to be able to play for God. That's my No. 1 thing, and not being able to get caught up in the politics are he shay or she say or how you say or like a lot of receivers who are really good are getting traded.
All you can really do is focus on being the pest person and teammate and best player that you can be, and just make the best out of the place that you're in.
Q. What's it like when it's the opposite where you're in a situation like this where the team you're on squares a player like Jones. How does word travel around? Do you talk about it in the locker room?
TYLER LOCKETT: I think it's just the business aspect of how things go. Obviously you're like whoa, whoa, what just happened, we heard about this and this. But for us as players you have to be able to adapt. That's the biggest thing about being able to get in this league is it there is no stability, right.
So you talk about stability, the way that a player can have some type of stability is by being okay with the amount of money you've already made. Once you make that amount of money, you're with getting traded or cut or whatever the case is, I'm just speaking in general right. Knowing there's no stability you have to be able to adapt as a player for any circumstance and situation.
So I think the culture that we have within the team and stuff is, we want to embrace everybody that comes in and we understand that the difficulty of being able to be traded in the season. Being able to learn and adapt and do those type of things but we have a lot of great vets and a lot of great people who will be able to try to reel people in to make it as comfortable and allow them to be at home even though they may be away from home, so they can be able to play at a high level and they can be able to do whatever is necessary to help us as a team.
Q. With Jaxon, some huge games -- probably a receiver's life generally but what do you notice from him going from year one to year two?
TYLER LOCKETT: I mean, obviously like I think he's been doing a great job. He's very consistent, especially when you're talking about in practice and he's doing everything he can. He's putting himself in a position where he's able to get open and he's able to understand the defenses, how to be able to sit in zones, different things like that.
I think like you said, the life of a receiver is everything has to go perfect. The quarterback has to throw the ball, the defense has to run the right routes, we have to make sure that we block it. Like the person that's guarding you has to do what we thought he was going to do.
So there's so many different things, even as a receiver, we have to do our part to be able to get everybody else open. So I think for the most part I think he's been doing a great job.
Obviously buying in is the biggest thing for all of us to be a great team and I think he's bought in and I think he's taking advantage of the opportunities and the things that he's being given and you know, I think he has made a huge jump from year one to year two.
. Obviously it's not ideal for any person to go from year one and it's like you learn this offense and now in year two you're learning this offense. He's done a great job being able to learn this new offense as he's in year two.
Q. If DK couldn't go or had to be limited, how much faith do you have in the depth at that position?
TYLER LOCKETT: I think we have great depth in our room. Obviously you guys seen it when we were in camp, even when we had joint practices, everybody was making plays left and right. It was a difficult probably decision for everybody upstairs to figure out who was going to be on the team, who was going to make the team.
So I think we have great depth and I think we have really great players to be able to go out there and make plays and do what's necessary to be able to help us be able to win those games.
Q. A lot of people talk about receivers and scouting the corners they are going to go against. Do you look the safety play and what do you look at?
TYLER LOCKETT: I look at everything but I don't tell nobody what I look at.
Q. What do you see from the Bills secondary?
TYLER LOCKETT: I think they are a really savvy unit. They do a great job, and playing together, like playing in sync, having chemistry. That's one thing you want as a defense, you want everybody running to the football and playing off each other and understanding each other's assignments, and I think they do a really good job.
I think they are one of the better teams that we've seen so far that have done a great job being able to play in sync together and knowing each other's jobs and how to play off of that.
For us, we have to be able to understand how to take what they give us and not try to overly do stuff. But there are some things that I think they do really well and some things we can take advantage of but we just have to be able to be smart.
Q. How much attention do you pay to where you are in the division and 49ers losing again?
TYLER LOCKETT: I don't think nobody cares much. I think those are for people that are fans that can have a great week that week knowing we're winning, leading the NFC but for the most part you never know what the end of that story is going to entail.
For us, if there's anything I think about, you have to make sure you're winning against NFC teams for sure because you don't want to be in the position we were in last year where there's teams where there's a head-to-head and you lose those head-to-heads because you've lost a numerous amount of NFC games and stuff.
For me, you have to make sure that you're taking care of those NFC games for sure because you don't want to have that comeback and hurt you in the long run.
Q. As a receiver, you have to stay ready, sometimes you're the target and sometimes you're not. How much pride do you take, like the last game in the half, two catches, or where you're the guy?
TYLER LOCKETT: I think for me, I take a lot of pride in it just because you know, like you said, I think every receiver wants to be involved early on, right and you want to be able to get going and stuff like that.
Sometimes things like that don't happen and it's easy to be able to get mad, get upset, get down on yourself, whatever are but at the same time for me check choke want to get to that place where I'm so angry to the where the where now I do get hunts and I'm not making I play because I'm not in sync with myself.
I always tell myself just stay ready because when this opportunity comes, if you was mad, you want getting the ball, now you got the ball, you didn't make the play. So it doesn't make your situation any better at all. For me it's like man take advantage of the opportunities. Continue to try to get open because you never know when it's going to be your opportunity and you never know when a play breaks down if it's going to be your opportunity so I think that's just a great message for anybody in life, too, is you've got to stay ready. Because sometimes things don't happen the way that you want to, and sometimes the way that you want to play doesn't happen the way you want to play but you're still able to have a great game. It's just a different way that it's written.
It's like that in life, too. Some opportunities, some doors don't open the way you want it to but you still get to that same spot and it reminds you in that verse, in the Bible, it talks about in his heart a man plans his course but the Lord orders his steps.
So like, you know, sometimes for me it's like if I'm looking at you know the plays that we're running this week and stuff, sometimes it's like, you've got to tell yourself, I'm exactly where God wants me to be. Let me make the best out of this because if you're faithful over this, He can make you rule over much more, right. But you can't get more if you're not faithful over what you have.
I take pride in being able to take advantage of all the things that I have because that's all that I need. You might want this or you might want that but what do you need and focus on that and if you decide to get more, if they give you more, then embrace that more.
But if you don't embrace that role that you've been given because that's what you have to do in order to help this team be successful that week.
Q. Pretty big role in that two-minute drill right before halftime against the Falcons. How did you see the offense progress and how did you evaluate that?
TYLER LOCKETT: I think we played really good as an offense. There are some things again every week we have to clean up. I think we did prettier in the pre snaps but we still kind of hurt ourselves after the first drive where we had points -- I think we hurt ourselves on the beginning of that second drive.
But we played the way that we wanted to play that week where we were in control and able to run the offense that we run and able to throw if he wanted, run if he wanted. So we were able to pick-and-choose what we wanted to do.
So I think it gave us a better sense of where we are as an offense where we are not allowing the penalties not control the narrative of what we want to do on offense just to get back in track. I think we are definitely headed in the right direction against a great team we ended up beating in Atlanta.
Q. When we talked to Ryan, he's pretty accountable. Against the Giants, he's like, should have called more runs, that's on me. How does it feel when it's something he came up short when he's in meetings with you guys?
TYLER LOCKETT: I think he's the same way. Might be a little bit more open or vulnerable towards us as far as certain things but he's spot on with the same things he says to you guys he says to us.
I think that's the biggest thing is accountability within yourself and we know the plays that we did, like things I could have did better on. To be able to speak it upon yourself, you don't always have to have people tell you what you did wrong. I think for him to be able to do that, it shows within us, we can be able to do that same thing. Don't just come in and wait for somebody to call you out and be like, they knew I messed up. It's like everybody knows but when you speak up, there's a different level of respect that comes from that.
Q. What did you think of Smith's pass --
TYLER LOCKETT: I thought he did a great job.
Q. Would you have thrown it?
TYLER LOCKETT: Oh, would I have thrown it? I don't know. I mean, you call a pass play, I'm most likely going to throw it until I can't. We call a pass play for me years ago and it wasn't there and I decided to run. You've got to do what you've got to do. But when you complete that, it puts trust in our room and that's what we need.
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