Remember Tyler Lockett? The Seahawks legend didn’t deserve to miss Seattle’s two most recent Super Bowls by one year each.

After his 10-year run in Seattle, he ranks second behind Hall of Famer Steve Largent in almost every franchise receiving record. A consummate professional, Lockett also made an indelible mark with teammates and in the community.

“About as good a human being as you’ve ever met in your life,” said one of his former coaches.

In 2014, the Seahawks made their second consecutive Super Bowl. They drafted Lockett out of Kansas State in the third round of 2015.
In March 2025, Seattle released him, then won the Super Bowl 11 months later.

A brutal break, surely, but it gets worse. While the Seahawks cemented themselves as the league’s best team in 2025, Lockett was playing for two of the worst teams: the Titans and Raiders. (The 33-year-old was released by Tennessee in October, then rejoined Pete Carroll in Las Vegas.)

 He isn’t the first player to miss both sides of success. Here are a few others, inspired by this Reddit thread:

All-Pro guard Logan Mankins was a mainstay on the 2000s Patriots, once playing 18 games on a torn ACL. Yet he somehow never won a Super Bowl. New England claimed the Lombardi in 2004 and 2014. Mankins was there from 2005 to 2013. Dang.

Wes Welker, an All-Pro receiver and Mankins’ teammate in New England, lost all three of his Super Bowls (two with the Patriots and one with the Broncos). Both teams won within three years of his departure.

In 2017, Brandin Cooks lost Super Bowl 52 while with the Patriots. He was traded to the Rams in 2018, then lost that year’s Super Bowl to the Patriots.

Then there are players like Takeo Spikes. The All-Pro linebacker never made the playoffs despite playing 15 seasons across five teams. Great name, bad bounce!

I’m sure you know more — please share them in the comments below. As for this postseason …

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Epic playoff moments

These playoffs felt weird, right?

It was the first since 1998 that didn’t feature Tom Brady, Peyton Manning or Patrick Mahomes. A quarterback who hadn’t attempted a pass all season started in the AFC Championship. The Bears won a playoff game against Green Bay for the first time since 1941. Heck, the Panthers and Jaguars were in it!

My colleague Steven Louis Goldstein assembled the regular season’s best plays, but I wanted to highlight three from the postseason that deserve to be remembered:

3. Patriots receiver Keyshon Boutte’s one-handed touchdown against elite Houston corner Derek Stingley Jr. The circumstances made it even better. Fourth quarter. Playoff game. Patriots only up five. In ugly New England weather. Stingley even tried to kick the ball while it was in Boutte’s hand.

2. Rashid Shaheed’s opening kickoff return for a touchdown against the 49ers on Seattle’s first play of the postseason. As the Niners kicker learned after this failed slide tackle, it was difficult to stop these Seahawks.

1. Caleb Williams’ game-saving touchdown to Cole Kmet, which I’m not sure I’ll ever forget. Had Chicago won that game, it would’ve been up there with the greatest plays of all time. It might still be.

Over to Ted Nguyen for a note from the Super Bowl.

What Ted’s Seeing: What Seattle knew

Mike Macdonald wants to break things. He wants to wreck opposing protection schemes with blitzes and simulated pressures.

However, his defense excelled because he tempered down his aggressiveness. Defensive coordinator Aden Durde recognized the defensive line was so good that it didn’t need to be as exotic schematically.

Against the Patriots in Super Bowl 60, the Seahawks smelled blood in the water. In the first quarter, Macdonald called blitzes on 23 percent of his plays. Defensive back Devon Witherspoon, who blitzed more in the Super Bowl than he had all season, told The Athletic they saw something in the Patriots’ protection scheme that they wanted to expose.

“It’s all about timing. You have to time up the blitz perfectly. We knew how they would protect in certain looks,” said Witherspoon.

One of the reasons they turned up the heat early was because they knew they could expose the protection. Also, blitzing is a way of caging in Drake Maye, one of the best scramblers in the league.

Whether it was intended or not, the early pressure caused Maye’s internal clock to speed up for the rest of the game. Macdonald dialed back the blitzes after building a lead and let his front four dominate like they have all season. More in the full story. 

Back to you, Jacob.

Extra Points

📊 Ranking non-playoff teams. In yesterday’s poll, you voted for the Lions as the team most likely to return to the postseason, followed by the Chiefs and Ravens. Elsewhere, Mike Jones ranked all 18 of those teams.

📋 Ready for mock drafts? Our beat reporters projected how the draft might unfold for the Bears, Colts, Ravens, Falcons and Vikings. The Chiefs wisely go offensive line.

📃 What does Giants co-owner Steve Tisch actually do for the team? He is under scrutiny due to his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, so my colleagues investigated his role.

🦅 Eagles fix? Anyone who wants to see Saquon Barkley succeed in Philadelphia should read Brooks Kubena’s preview of how a staff overhaul changes the Eagles offense.

▶️ Yesterday’s most-clicked: The biggest offseason needs for all 32 teams, though new ownership might be the real answer for many.

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