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Tyler Lockett has run plenty of routes in his 10-season career as a Seattle Seahawks wide receiver. Now he wants to just take a walk — and he’ll do it with a lucky fan’s dog in a new contest launched by Seattle-based pet-sitting company Rover.

“Walk it with Lockett” kicked off on Thursday, and fans can enter by first creating an account on Rover and then emailing a picture of their dog and brief description about why their pup is Seattle’s biggest football fan.

Submissions will be accepted until next week, Jan. 16. One dog and dog parent will get to meet Lockett and go for a walk on Jan. 23. As part of the campaign, Lockett is also donating $5,000 to Seattle Humane.

Lockett and his wife, Lauren, have a pair of Goldendoodles named Chase and Cannon. He’s most interested in seeing how the dogs of Seahawks fans show off their football skills — whether they can run and catch a football, or if they “juke” their owner like a good receiver when they return.

He’s hopeful that the winning dog knows command words and isn’t bigger than he is. No roughing – or ruffing? — penalties, please.

“When you’ve been a Seahawk for so long, you already know that the fans here are crazy,” Lockett told GeekWire. “But you never really hear about how crazy the dogs are. I guess we’re gonna really see as we get this competition underway.”

Founded in 2011 out of a Seattle hackathon event, Rover has expanded over the years beyond dog sitting into cat care, pet grooming, pet gear and more. The company was acquired by asset manager Blackstone in a deal worth approximately $2.3 billion in 2023.

Lockett has a year left on his Seahawks contract, but has acknowledged that his All-Pro career in Seattle may be coming to an end. But he said he still plans to play next season, with the Seahawks or elsewhere.

And beyond walking dogs and getting ready to be a first-time father, Locket is also busy with his side gig as a real estate agent, a job he got into because he felt like he could evaluate houses as well as he evaluates football players.

We asked him for his quick takes on a few other tech topics (edited for brevity and clarity):

• Views on tech and athlete performance? “The more you play, the more everybody in football has gotten to the point where they focus a lot on the chips that they put on you in order to keep track of your numbers and keep track on how many yards you’re running, or how many explosive movements or explosive cuts that you make within a game. … It’s kind of a double-edged sword when it comes to saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to use this to help you,’ but they can also say, ‘He’s not as explosive anymore, he’s not as quick anymore.'”
• Thumbs up or down on AI? “There’s a lot of cool things about AI that can make everybody more efficient within their jobs. It really depends on what it’s being used for. When you see things on Twitter, people will try to use AI to change photos and stuff, to make it seem like a person is doing something that they’re not. People can’t tell the difference. That’s not gonna benefit anybody in the world.”
• Favorite app these days? “I’m not really on a lot of the apps. If anything, I’m in my [email]. That’s where I get more notifications … people saying they need help looking for a house, or saying they want to work with me.”
• Favorite video game? “We play a lot of ‘Call of Duty’ and a lot of ‘College Football.'”