RENTON, Wash. -- As a highlight video played on the big screen in the auditorium, former Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Ricardo Lockette had to look away.

Standing between his mom, Felita, and his dad, Earl Sr., Lockette faced the wall for a few moments to compose himself before turning around and watching with everyone else. He periodically wiped the tears from his eyes, and just before the clip ended, Felita rubbed his shoulder and adjusted his pocket square.

The room was filled with Seahawks employees, including many of Lockette's former teammates and coaches. When he walked in, he saluted his teammates and shouted, "We all we got!"

"We all we need!" they yelled back.

After suffering a devastating injury last season -- on Nov. 1 in Week 8 against the Dallas Cowboys -- Lockette announced his retirement Thursday afternoon.

"I have titanium plates in my neck," he said. "The vertebrae that’s connecting my skull to my spinal cord, that was detached. The one under that, 1 through 4. So I have two plates connecting the 4. That was pretty much it. There’s nothing I could do with that. The way I play ... a lot of guys have surgery like that, but they play quarterback. Like Peyton Manning. Someone else had it. But they don’t fly down there like a missile and run into people and have to go across the middle and stuff like that. I didn’t want to play the game like that. Especially only with 50 percent rotation. That kind of had a lot to do with it."

Players often talk about never knowing when their last game or their last play could be. The reality of that concept doesn't usually sink in until it's over.

Lockette played five years (34 games) in the NFL. He caught 22 balls for 451 yards and four touchdowns. But his true value came on special teams. On Nov. 1, Lockette was racing downfield with Cowboys defensive back Byron Jones on punt coverage when safety Jeff Heath delivered the devastating blow. Lockette said he talked to Heath that night before he went into surgery.

"I said, ‘Heath, I respect you. You’re a great player. I watched you all week. I studied you and looked forward to playing you ... it was an honor,'" Lockette said. "I feel like he is a warrior. And I told him, ‘Keep playing with the same passion, keep playing with the same passion. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.'"

Lockette, who will turn 30 on May 21, doesn't blame Heath. Instead, he wonders if there's something he could have done differently on the play.

"I feel like if I could have knocked that dude down quicker that was distracting me, then there would have been no blind side," he said. "Or if I would have just ran through him and sped off, then he couldn’t have caught me. There was always something I could have done."

The violent nature of football is evident on every snap. Plays that end careers are said to offer perspective, but everyone moves on quickly. Players take a knee, say their prayers, and then put their helmets back on for the next snap. That's how they are programmed.

Lockette's life took a dramatic turn on Nov. 1. Going forward, he needs to avoid lifting anything heavy. He said he won't be able to play sports with his kids or ride with them on roller coasters. Lockette is an optimist, and so he realizes his life could be a lot worse.

Asked if retiring was a hard decision, he said, "No, because I love my family, and I'd rather walk."

Like the majority of his peers, Lockette is wired differently than the average person. He had a singularly focused mindset and said he can accept that what happened to him was part of the risk that came with the job.

"It’s kind of tough," Lockette said. "People say, ‘Hey dude, are you sad that this happened to you and that the guy hit you and blah, blah, blah?’ No, because I’m a dog. And you live by the sword and you die by the sword. So I can’t complain about that. And I’ve done a lot of things on the field that I probably shouldn’t have gotten away with it. And I don’t regret it because I did it for my boys. And it wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about showing how big and bad I was. It was about, your job is to make the Seahawks win. And so whatever it takes to get that done, that’s my job. And that’s what I was willing to do."

Lockette isn't sure what he'll do next. He said he knows he wants to do work in the community -- helping the homeless, kids and battered women. Perhaps he'll try out some media. Financially, he prepared for life after football, even if the end came suddenly.

"The locker room, my boys, the road trips, the videos coach [Pete] Carroll prepared for us before the games, the speeches," Lockette replied when asked what he'll miss the most.

"Breaking that huddle before the game, the kickoff team when we say, 'Hey, we're kicking off,' and we're loading up, and then the boys are running around and the whole team is jumping, and then we're in the middle and you know what's about to happen. We're about to go. We've been preparing for this all week, and this is it, and the 12th man is as loud as you can imagine. Hair is standing up on my skin and chill bumps, but there's no fear. There's no fear, and I'm looking at the guy I have to defeat, and he knows exactly what's going to happen, I know exactly what's going to happen, and I make it happen. That's what I'm going to miss."