“First off, I just want to start off by saying I think our equipment staff and our athletic training staff should definitely get a raise. I think that they did a tremendous job. If you see the things that they do day in and day out, our equipment staff literally has to stay overnight just to be able to put our stuff back where it’s supposed to be to get us ready to be able to practice and stuff again. Literally, they barely even sleep. We come back on Monday, we got seven, eight hours in. Still pulling the all-nighter just to help us, the athletic training staff, I couldn’t tell you.

“One time one of the athletic trainers went back with me right after the game so we can get some treatment going to get ready for the next game. I mean, it just speaks volumes, the people that we have in this building and been blessed to be able to know them. Some of them for 10 years, some of them for six, some of them for one, but definitely got to get them a shout-out.”

“Oh, I mean I think it was a good game. I mean, I felt like this last year, so obviously, you never know when it’s going to be the end, because I kind of plan on playing again. I know it’s not the very, very end. It’d be different if I was retiring. But, yeah, I mean I think it’s always going to be somewhat sensitive just because that could have been the last time you put on a jersey, so I’m glad I ended with a catch, you know, just in case.

“Glad we ended up with a win. And one of the cool things was, like in the beginning of my career, it started off first the Rams, and maybe the last game of my Seahawks career, possibly, it ended versus the Rams, and we were able to win that game. But I mean just truly incredible. I’m just glad we were able to win. Glad we were able to fight back regardless if they had their players playing or not.

“And yeah, I mean I went out there and, you know, I just played. Yeah, you might have some emotions and different thoughts that go through your head, but you got to get all that stuff out or learn how to play through it when you’re out there in the game.”

(On if he always sits on the 20-yard line to throw passes after warm-ups)

“Yeah, I always did that. And then when we got Mike [Macdonald] as our head coach, I didn’t know what I could and couldn’t do. I used to do it a lot when Pete was the coach, and so I kind of had to figure out his schedule and how we did certain things. And so I kind of picked back to doing it, I think after bye week.

“And then I hit it twice today, but it was because one of the games, I think when I got the Steve Largent Award, I didn’t hit it. And so I’m like, ‘I got to make sure I hit it twice.’ And so, yeah, pretty good at throwing the ball.”

(On possibly coming back on a different contract)

“That’s an agent question. I think it’s going to be a lot of conversations and I don’t really know what’s going to be said or what’s going to … It’s easy to say that we want you back, but I mean you still got to be able to have those conversations and figure out what’s going to work, what’s not going to work, what’s the role going to be, all that different type of stuff.

“All I can really do is enjoy the fact that I’m about to have a girl and learn how to take care of her and two dogs. And from there, I just let my agent kind of talk to them and kind see what it is that they want to do and how they want to go about using me and how they see me fitting with the team.

“But regardless, man, 10 years with the same team, I think the only people that have done it since I’ve been able to play on this team were KJ [Wright], Bobby [Wagner], and Russ [Wilson]. Well, it makes it, like, it’s easy to play for 10 years for the same team when I played with three of them, but it’s very difficult to do, just being able to play in the NFL. And so for me, I don’t take it lightly. I think I’ve had so many great relationships with not just the players, but everybody that’s been inside of the building from people on the second floor to people on the third floor, to our nutritionist, to the strength and conditioning coaches. They need to get a raise too, by the way, both of them.

“But yeah, I just think overall, man, that’s what makes coming into the building fun. When you have relationships with people outside of football, it makes you excited to get up, to be able to go and try to achieve this journey that we’re all on to try to get to the playoffs, to win the Super Bowl, or just create a team that wants to be able to play for their coaches, that wants to be able to play for the community and the city. And so I appreciate the city too, man. I think the city is amazing. I’ll always view Seattle as a college town. And, yeah, maybe this isn’t the end, maybe it is the end, but I always will be a Seahawk through and through.”

(On his thoughts on timeline for a decision on his future)

“We can call John [Schneider] and Joey [Laine] up here right now. I think that would be easy for everybody, right? I mean, I don’t know. I’m sure they kind of have their timeframe, people that they want to extend, people that they want to talk to. And I’m sure it’s a lot of stuff they got to figure out, so I’m going to be patient, kind of like talk to my agent, see what he thinks and stuff like that, and we’ll just kind of go from there. But I’ll probably have a lot more to say tomorrow when we exit meetings, but I mean I just appreciate everybody. I really do. I don’t really cry like that.”

(On how he would evaluate Mike Macdonald’s first season as a head coach)

“10 wins, only coach in Seahawks history to do it. I mean, I think that says a lot. It’s hard to get 10 wins just in the NFL in general. The fact that we were able to get it on his first year, I think that’s incredible. Yes, we missed the playoffs. The projections were, what, five wins in the season. I definitely would’ve made a lot of money had I put in on a parlay, had I not played football this year because I believe that we would’ve won way more than five games.

“I mean, it just says the type of culture that he’s trying to bring. It says a lot about the people who believe in him, the coaches that he selected to be able to make this thing work. And we just got to make sure, man, that we don’t lose to these NFC teams because those are the things that hurt you when it gets to, ‘All right, does the strength of schedule fit? What does the division look like? What does the conference wins look like when it comes to the records?’

“Because that’s the thing that hurts us, because I think we tied with, what, maybe somebody else, I don’t know. We tied with the Rams, but they beat us when you go all the way to the fifth or the sixth thing. And so we can’t just shoot ourselves in the foot, we got to be able to go out there and win games. We won this game and it was close, but we got to be able to make sure we’re winning more games when it’s close.”

(On him and Jaxon Smith-Njigba being tied for the single-season record for receptions)

“Yeah. I mean, shout out to Jax for wanting me to still be right there beside him. So, yeah, I think I just found out that we tied when I was walking out to do another interview, but I mean, I think that’s dope, man. At least I’ll be able to share it with somebody. Sometimes it’s lonely up there at the top, and so being able to have somebody that was able to come be a part of the team and took off in year two, it’ll always be cool at this moment just to be able to talk about how great of a player JSN is, how I think he’s going to continue to thrive and continue to do a lot of great things as long as he continues to get the same opportunities that he’s getting. And it’s kind of cool to share that in a record book with him for sure.”

(On Geno Smith’s performance on Sunday)

“Hey man, I think Geno left it all out there on the field. I mean, obviously, people saw him limping and stuff out there, but I mean, I think he was just incredible with just being able to lead us back to victory and just being able to seal the win. Hopefully, he was able to reach his incentives and stuff like that. We were definitely shouting out Leo [Williams] because Leo hit his incentive.

“But yeah, man, even besides all of that, man, it’s just the fact that everybody on this team wanted to play for each other. They wanted to go out there and they wanted to win. It makes football so much easier when you know the next man cares just as much as you care. It’s hard to be able to get that because in the league you get paid so much money and so many people could have tapped out and said, ‘You know what? I’m ready for free agency, or I’m ready for the off season so I could get away from all of this stuff.’

“And the biggest thing that you always hope is to have a team that could be able to buy in, not just when camp starts, because everybody is ready to prove themselves, but when you get to this part of the season and when it’s November, December, beginning of January, you’ll be surprised by how many people usually are no longer bought in. And this team was bought in from the very jump, even when we were on that losing game streak and fans were going crazy, people were going crazy, it didn’t matter. People still bought in and I think it showed who we were as a team and who we’re going to continue to be.

“All right. Appreciate y’all, man. I give God all the glory. Happy New Year.”