Seahawks tight end Luke Willson’s 2016 season was anything but perfect.

Willson, who was set to become a free agent following the year, suffered a right knee injury in a Seattle win over Atlanta on Oct. 16. He was forced to miss five games after surgery and finished the season with career lows in targets, receptions as well as yards.

But a positive came from the injury: a change in his mindset, according to Willson.

“I had time to sit back and really have some realizations about how fragile this game could be,” he said. “I really dedicated myself this year.”

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So far in 2017, his dedication is paying off as he is on pace for one of the best seasons of his career, months after signing a reported one-year, $3 million contract extension with the Seahawks.

After opening the year without a catch against Green Bay, Willson hauled in three passes for 25 yards in a win over San Francisco. One week later, he caught three passes against Tennessee, including a leaping 27-yard touchdown reception, and he followed that with a wide-open, six-yard scoring grab against Indianapolis.

It was the first time in his five-year career that Willson caught touchdown passes in back-to-back games. All told, he has seven catches for 82 yards and those two scores heading into a Week 7 game at the New York Giants — one more TD than regular starter Jimmy Graham. Willson's high for touchdowns in a season came in 2014, when he caught three spread out over 15 games.

“Any opportunity that I get [this year], I’ve just made sure I’m making the most of it,” he said. “So far it’s worked out and I have a good feeling I’m going to score a few more.”

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said in August that the team made it a priority to re-sign Willson because of what he brings both on and off the field.

“He is such a great team member for us,” Carroll said during training camp . “He is really good at doing everything and he knows our offense exceedingly well… We love the way he plays, but he is a better teammate. He is just a spark plug guy on our football team and we needed him here.”

While Willson has played in every game so far this season, the Seahawks have dealt with multiple players missing contests due to injury. Starting running back Chris Carson suffered a broken left leg in early October, defensive end Cliff Avril went down with a serious neck injury in the same game, and projected starting left tackle George Fant tore his ACL in mid-August. Willson said it’s devastating when a guy goes down.

“I think that a lot of fans sometimes forget that we’re human beings and we have lives outside of football,” he said. "This is our livelihood, this is what we dream of, and it’s not like hey, we just show up on Sundays and play games. There are tons of hours that go in preparing throughout the week, long work days. And it is not like you can just shut your brain off. I mean, you are constantly, every time you eat something, any time you miss an hour of sleep, it is always on your head because you've got to be prepared for Sunday, and you've got to be accountable.

“A lot of people do this for their family members and like I said, their livelihood, so when guys get hurt like that, and it’s such a cutthroat league, it’s next man up. But it’s tough because you go in and you battle and you grind with these guys during practice, during training camp, during OTAs, and a lot of guys you develop a real personal relationship with, and then all of a sudden it’s like bam, like a serious injury, and it’s tough because we’ve all been there at one point.

"And you feel for the guy, obviously some of the serious ones, the season is over, but the rehab process is not a joke. These guys that come back ... Oh, so and so came back a couple weeks earlier, a month earlier. You really have to put a lot of work in to come back and not just be healthy but be able to perform. So, it is a long road for a lot of those guys, especially for us this year, we’ve had some gruesome injuries, and it’s tough to see but you know you try to rally and support them as much as you can.”

Willson, 27, grew up in LaSalle, Ontario, and besides football, he also excelled at baseball. He was a member of the Canadian Junior National baseball team in 2008 and signed with the Blue Jays three years later, before deciding to pursue a football career. Deep down, he's also a New York Yankees fan, telling Sporting News in advance of the win-or-go-home Game 5 matchup in Cleveland that he had a good feeling about the team, and that if the Yankees are out of the playoffs, he probably won’t be watching too much.

“Don't get me wrong, I loved played baseball," Willson said to seahawks.com in 2013. "But I always wanted to go the football route. That was always kind of the goal. Looking back, I think I made the right decision.”

Willson said he still tries to visit Canada, specifically Vancouver, when the Seahawks play a Thursday night game, as the team gets extra time off during those weeks. Vancouver is just over 140 miles from Seattle.

“[Vancouver] is by far my favorite city that I’ve actually ever visited… I think it’s cool the relationship with all the Seahawk fans there,” he said. “There’s something about being Canadian for me, even when I go over to Vancouver, as soon as I cross that border, you just feel like you’re at home.”