This week, Seahawks receiver Tyler Lockett is gearing up to play in his first game of his 10th season.

"It's a blessing to me still to be here in year 10," Lockett said. "There's still a good amount of guys that I came in draft class with; they're still being able to play, and they're still playing at a high level or still being able to be on the team and stuff. And so I think it's a blessing all around. We always say it's three and a half is the average. Basically, I beat that dang nearly three times."

Last season, Lockett started and played in all 17 games, with 894 receiving yards and five touchdowns. This season, he says he wants to reach another level of play.

"But for me going into Year 10, I want to be able to be the best version of myself, whether that's blocking, I could do a way better job of blocking, whether that's being a better decoy, whether that's getting myself open. I'm at the point now where I want to be able to take my game to another level regardless of age, regardless of years."

Coming up on a home opener and the first game of the season, Lockett thought back to his first game in the league, his Pro Bowl season, when he returned a punt for a touchdown.

"I mean I was looking forward to it," Lockett said on that first game. "I didn't know what to expect, but being at St. Louis, I mean it was close to home, easy drive, easy flight for anybody in my family that wanted to come out there. I was around a lot of great guys. It was a veteran-oriented team, so it made it a lot easier for me because really I just had to do my part. I didn't have to do too much; I didn't have to do too little. I just had to go out there and be me. And it felt great because in preseason I was blessed to be able to establish myself in a way to where a lot of those guys believed in me at returner, they gave me the chance to be number three."

And for a player who has been with the same team for his entire career, Lockett has played a lot of players and seen many different skillsets, but he really likes what he sees from this receiving group.

"I think this been the best receiving corps I've been a part of just from camp to OTAs, just seeing what everybody's done," Lockett said. "I just think this receiving corps is dynamic and all of us do so many amazing things and because a lot of us have been on the same team with one another, it's easy to be able to play off of one another. And now our game is starting to correlate with the way that we play to where you could be able to see that there's been some level of rhythm and chemistry as we're going out there and playing."

The forefront of that receiving corps and offense is Geno Smith, who Lockett says is looking sharp going into Week 1.

"He's been phenomenal… He's had the best camp that I've seen him have and his mindset. He he still has that mindset of that dog mentality. 'I have to go out there and grind. I have to go out there and get it for them.'…I'm just excited to still be able to be here playing with him and just being able to go out here and try to do what we can to make this team better."

Making it to 10 years is no small feat, especially when the average NFL career length is 3.3 years, according to the NFL Players' Association.

"The biggest thing that I tell a lot of people is you have to put down how many number of years you want to play, but you can't control what team it is," Lockett said on having a long career. "So if you say I want to play eight years, you have to focus on giving that your all for those eight years. You can't get so caught up and emotional to be attached to a team because the team is going to do what's best for the team at all times. And so for me, every time that I decide to play, I'm like, number one, 'I'm going to go hard for God.' Number two, 'I'm going to give it all I got and we just going to see where the chips fall.' But regardless of what happens, I know I'm going to come back swinging the next play."

When coming into the league, Lockett set out eight years in his mind, and he's surpassed that. But no. Eight isn't just an arbitrary number that he came up with.

"My dad played seven [years]. When I had beat his records at K. State (Kansas State) he was like, 'But you didn't get drafted in front of me. It was like, let me try to play eight.' Then I played eight, it wasn't no level of competition, but now I can at least be like, 'You played seven."