Lorenzo Reyes

USA TODAY

RENTON, Wash. – Tyler Lockett is a rookie, but this isn’t his first time around high-stakes professional football.

His father, Kevin, and uncle, Aaron, both starred at Tyler’s alma mater, Kansas State, and eventually played in the NFL. Kevin played seven years with the Kansas City Chiefs, Washington Redskins, Jacksonville Jaguars and New York Jets. Aaron was drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and eventually signed with the San Francisco 49ers, though he never saw game action.

Tyler, however, is getting the chance to do something neither had the chance to do: star in the postseason.

“Some people were born in a family of doctors,” Tyler Lockett told USA TODAY Sports Thursday, minutes before he was due in practice. “My family is just a sports family. And it helps a lot, too, because it’s not like I’m the first one going through it. All I do is sit there and listen to them and go out and do what I can do.”

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When the Seattle Seahawks travel to Carolina to face the Panthers in Sunday’s divisional-round showdown, Lockett is among the secondary receivers that will be key in attacking a Panthers defensive backfield that has been battered with injuries.

Carolina’s all-pro cornerback Josh Norman is expected to follow Seahawks No. 1 receiver Doug Baldwin, who has emerged as one of the NFL’s most productive pass catchers after a blistering end to the 2015 season, in which he recorded 78 catches for 1,069 yards and 14 touchdowns.

That leaves No. 2 receiver Jermaine Kearse and Lockett, third on the depth chart, as players who could see favorable matchups against Carolina cornerbacks Robert McClain and Cortland Finnegan, both of whom were signed late in the year to mitigate the loss of Charles Tillman and Bené Benwikere to season-ending injuries.

This is a far cry from Seattle’s previous trips to the playoffs the past two years, in which the national narrative was that the receiving corps was devoid of talent. Baldwin, Kearse and Lockett all know what was said, and they remember the comments.

“We ain’t going to say it, and we’ll just kind of let our game show what it is,” Kearse told USA TODAY Sports. “But we just try to compete, really. It’s not like we go out there: ‘I’m gonna catch this ball because this dude said I couldn’t.’ We just want to ball out.”

Seahawks defense much stronger than it was in Week 6 loss to Panthers

Many people pegged Lockett as a sure-fire contributor on special teams as a rookie. He has established his value there with a pair of return touchdowns and a kickoff return average of 25.8 yards. But it’s his threat as an intermediate-to-deep target that has made Seattle look brilliant for selecting him in the third round.

“For me, regardless of what people’s expectations were, I knew what I am able to do and I knew what I’m capable of,” Lockett said. “Other people just didn’t, and they didn’t pay attention in college and stuff like that.

“Like I said in my interviews, if special teams was the way that people were going to talk about me and get to know me, that’s cool, but they’re going to see other things.”

In 16 games this year, Lockett caught 51 passes for 664 yards and six touchdowns.

Lockett's impact was evident in Seattle’s 10-9 wild-card victory last week against the Minnesota Vikings. Other than Vikings place kicker Blair Walsh’s botched 27-yard kick, the biggest play of the game might have been a connection between Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and Lockett.

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With 13 minutes left in the game, Wilson wasn’t ready for a shotgun snap that sailed over his left shoulder. As he recovered it in the backfield, he composed himself, bought some time and found Lockett come open in the middle of the field for a pivotal 35-yard gain that put the Seahawks at the 4-yard line and set up Seattle’s lone touchdown of the day.

“Tyler Lockett, if we’re playing Madden, his field awareness would probably be 100,” quarterback Russell Wilson said. “I think he understands the game extremely well. He understands where to go.”

Wilson didn’t stop there.

“I really think that Tyler Lockett is worthy of rookie of the year because of all of the things that he has done,” Wilson continued before citing Lockett's versatility in special teams and in the passing game. “He’s a guy that gets here early, leaves late. Has a smile on his face every day and you can’t get much better than that. That’s why he has had so much success so far.”

Follow Lorenzo Reyes on Twitter @LorenzoGReyes.