Leonard Williams: “We Have A Special Thing On This Team” | Seattle Seahawks

Leonard Williams: “We Have A Special Thing On This Team” | Seattle Seahawks

What’s up? Good. Back on the defensive side of things with Oh, yeah. It’s uh it’s nice to see Quandre back. I mean, he’s a great leader. Um you know, he’s been in this part of this organization for a long time. So, everybody welcome them back with open arms. when you see a defense like the Vikings that blitzes like crazy and and you guys don’t send extras, uh, you know, is it is it fun to play a defense that that blitzes that often or do you care one way or another? Uh, I mean, it’s definitely fun to blitz. Um, but as a defensive lineman, we prefer to not blitz because like, um, if we could rush with four and get to the quarterback, that means the sack is going to one of us in the defensive line room. And you know, we all talk about, you know, you know, how we’re we would be happy if anyone got the sack on third down to get off the field, but as a competitive defense, um, our defensive line wants to get every sack, so sometimes we prefer to not send pressure. You’ve got at least, is it 17 guys with a half sack this year? Just like an incredible. Have you ever been on a team where it has been so distributed in that category? Um, I’m I’m not sure. I don’t think I pay attention to it as much when I was younger, but it’s definitely a unique thing here. Um, you know, at one point the defensive coordinator I I think AD asked the guys to raise their hand if they got at least a half a sack in the room and you just seen like the way we’re distributed in our defensive meeting and it’s like the the the secondary sits in the front and then the linebackers and then the D line and you know, you see guys from every level raising their hand and uh I think that’s pretty rare. What does it say about the guys like a Derek Hall who gets his first sack last week even though he’s been around the quarterback a lot? Because that could breed jealousy or it could breed competition and camaraderie. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s what’s so special here is uh you don’t see as much jealousy. Um you see a lot of camaraderie, a lot of um competition. Um, but at the same time, like even for a guy like Derek Hall who just got his first sack, uh, whenever he’s seen one of his peers or teammates get a sack, uh, leading up to his, you know, he’s he’s the first one in there celebrating with them. Um, and like I just said, it’s like regardless of who gets the sack on third down, I think overall, we’re excited to have a good defense. We’re excited to get off the field and in clutch situations. So, um, you know, even if it’s Spoon getting the sack on a on a blitz, although I want to get that sack, I’m still going to be happy that he got it. He’s a part of our defense and we all root for each other. What was the bigger picture message uh from Eden Dirty when he asked you that? Like, what point was he making when he asked you guys that? I think that was the point is that, um, you know, we were talking about our pressure rate. Um, and his point was that, you know, it’s not just the D line. It takes rush and coverage a lot of times. like sometimes he was showing our pressure on quarterbacks and um you know it took the quarterback to go through his second progression. So you know there’s sometimes where we’re getting pressure because the secondary is doing their jobs by um you know making the quarterback hold the hold the ball. Um and we were just talking about how it just all ties together and you know how we send pressure, we send blitzes and uh we’re pretty much like trying to teach and you know let some of the the guys in other rooms that are not in the defensive line that uh they have to learn how to rush the quarterback as well. How were you guys with the end of that game in Tennessee and the fourth down conversions and the long drives Tennessee got on you? I mean, I think it was definitely a learning moment uh from last week, which was um you know, in this league. Um a lot of times you have those moments and and you lose the game. So overall, I think we’re we’re happy that we won the game, but there there was a lot of takeaways that we could learn from um you know, specifically with getting off the ball, getting off the field on on those fourth downs and just doing a better job tackling. Was it simply a matter of Ward ran around a lot and was kind of hard to get to him or were there some other things you could have done there with some of the plays he was making? Uh I mean, I think there was definitely some things we could have done there, but you know, at the same time, we got to give them credit. You know, I think um you know, he he made some pretty impressive throws. Um, I remember hitting him out of bounds all the way to our left and he threw the ball completely across the field and just made a good play. You know, sometimes in football that’s just going to happen. Um, I think, you know, where our defense does good is we swarm to the ball regardless of the situation. And, uh, a lot of times we stop those situations. Uh, you know, when a when a quarterback’s making a great play like that, we still get off the field. And, um, you know, that’s overall what stood out to me is that we kept fighting. The best. You think you guys are the you’re the best first half scoring differential. You’re jumping out and leading. How is that alone helping defense pass? I mean, it helps a lot because one, our offense is staying on the field, sustaining drives long enough for our defense to recover um from the last series and, you know, we’re getting our wind and our legs back. So, by the time we go back out there, we’re ready to go. And then also, when you get a jump on a team, um they pretty much have to score. Um, and a lot of times they they abandon the run uh pretty early and they have to pass the ball, which you know, as a as a defensive line and as a defense that wants to get pressure on the quarterback, um, that’s going to be in our favor. Your shirts. I don’t know. They just end up in my locker and I love them. During Yeah, sorry. during camp when when Ernest was still coming back and then Tiger Knight was gone for a while. We saw Patrick O’Connell and Drake Drake get a lot of first team reps. What kind of confidence did that give you guys as a defense seeing them in that role doing it for that stretch? I mean, I think uh you know, Pat and Drake um just from a work ethic standpoint gives us confidence in them. um before we even seen them take reps with the ones. I think you know Patrick is one of those guys where I seen he’s one of the first guys in and the last guys out and uh you know I’ve had conversations with him and he told me he learned a lot from Bobby uh Wagner when he was here and you know his work ethic and how he showed up every day and I see those same patterns in in Patrick and um you know to me it’s like that alone gives me the confidence in him when he’s out there on the field with us. What about how physical he played in that game? I mean he played great. he was coming down hills hitting his uh holes and um you know a lot of times they tell defensive lineman like hold the old lineman off of the our linebackers and you know sometimes like I just said of you know us wanting to be selfish and get to the quarterback it’s the same way in the run game it’s like sometimes I want to shed the block so I can make the play but when you have a linebacker coming downhill and hitting it like that it’s like I I’ll hold this offensive lineman off of you all day. Going back to that point about Derrick Hall and kind of selflessness up front. Boyer, same thing. You know, only got one sack and he’s in a contract year as you know, sacks get guys paid. What does that say about his kind of selflessness that he’s accepting his role despite being last year his deal? It says a lot. I mean, I think for all of us, um, we’re allowed to succeed and do well when we fully just accept our role. Um, I think when you’re trying to fight your role and, you know, fight the system and, um, it just makes the situation worse in my opinion. Um, you know, he knows his role. He knows when he’s out there on the field and he has to maximize his opportunities and his snap count and all those things. So, um, if you’re not fully locked in and prepared and ready for the moment and you’re too worried about, you know, things you can’t control, um, like outside of your role, um, then that’s going to affect your plays when you’re out there on the field. So I think um you know that’s a special thing on this team right now on this defense especially that you know guys are knowing their roles. They know when to take their opportunities and and know when to take their shots. Make it sound like it’s this I mean it’s it’s certainly a team effort right but how much of this is you talking about your past experience and being the leader in the room that says this is how we are going to play. I mean I think that is a big part of it. I think I do play a big role in the leadership in our defensive line. Um, and luckily I don’t have to do it alone. Um, we have guys like Jay Reed, Demarcus Lawrence, um, you know, other good vets in our room. Um, and that’s something that, you know, we’ve been talking a lot about is just making sure that we stay the course and just reminding the young guys, um, that it’s not easy to be in the position that we’re in right now as a team. on the unselfishness. How important was it for players to buy in early in OTAAS training camp? It just didn’t happen now. Yeah. How early was that? Uh I think that was you know that’s a good point. I think it was really important to um you know take it by the horns early on cuz uh now by this time in the season um there’s a lot of teams that have players that are down from injury. Um there’s a lot of players battling through, you know, small injuries to stay on the field. Um there’s a lot of, you know, things that could be going against teams and like this is a time where we rely on our basics, um rely on our culture, rely on our um identity as a team. And I think that identity was created way back in OTAAS and camp. Um so if we didn’t have that strong base found and and strong foundation, um you know, it would be really hard at this time of year. Thank you so much.

Seahawks defensive end Leonard Williams discusses the team’s defensive success and team culture. He highlights Quandre Diggs’ leadership (0:08) and the team’s unique distribution of sacks among players (1:00). Williams emphasizes the camaraderie within the team, mentioning Derick Hall’s first sack (1:49). He explains how the defense’s strong first-half performance helps them (4:41) and praises Patrick O’Connell’s work ethic (5:39). Williams also discusses the importance of players accepting their roles, citing Boye Mafe as an example (6:51), and stresses the significance of establishing team identity early in OTAs and training camp (8:28). He mentions the leadership roles of veterans like Jaran Reed and DeMarcus Lawrence (7:59) in maintaining the team’s course throughout the season.

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