RENTON, Wash. -- At what point this offseason did DeMarcus Lawrence decide to put off retirement and return for a 13th NFL season?
"When my wife said it was OK," the Seattle Seahawks linebacker said Friday.
Exactly when that happened is unclear, but Lawrence confirmed that he considered calling it a career after finally hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.
"I kinda had my mind made up that if I won, I was done," he said while speaking to local reporters for the first time since Seattle's Super Bowl LX victory. "But I kinda had a bittersweet feeling in my heart, understanding that with the type of team that we had, we should have been where we were last year. This is where the hard part begins, staying on top."
Lawrence, 34, considered retiring last offseason after his 11-year run with the Dallas Cowboys came to an end. He instead signed with the Seahawks in March and became a key piece of their top-ranked scoring defense.
After playing only four games in 2024 with Dallas, Lawrence recorded 6.0 sacks and scored a pair of defensive touchdowns in 16 regular-season games on his way to the fifth Pro Bowl nod of his career and his first trip past the divisional round of the playoffs.
Lawrence had a sack in each of the Seahawks' first two postseason games before they beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX.
"They say it's no fun when the rabbit has the gun," Lawrence said. "We're the ones with the dot on our backs. I just want to see how that feels, see the different obstacles that we can overcome, are we going to stay together in those tough moments throughout a season and just be a part of this brotherhood."
Complicating Lawrence's decision to return was the fact that his wife, Sasha, gave birth to their blended family's sixth child one day after the Super Bowl.
"We was in there partying with T-Pain," Lawrence said, "and the baby came 12 hours later."
Lawrence made it back to Texas before his daughter Syenna arrived.
"You could say it was stressful, but it was a blessing," he said. "Just to be able to have my mindset on receiving a child into this world -- my last child at that -- and then on top of it, put the cherry on the top and win a Super Bowl, I feel like that's all a man can dream of."
