Ex-Giants Leonard Williams, Julian Love cherish this Seahawks ride

Published 10:30 am Thursday, January 8, 2026

They were handing out cigars, lighting ‘em up, celebrating.

The music was bumpin’ inside the visiting locker room at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, last Saturday night. The Seahawks had just dominated the San Francisco 49ers to win the NFC West and earn the top seed in conference playoffs.

Amid the cigar smoke and the bass and the roars, Julian Love and Leonard Williams found each other. The former teammates, exiled from losing years with the New York Giants, hugged and talked about their appreciation for where they now are with Seattle.

After playing through a combined 16 losing seasons before becoming Seahawks, they are on a winner.

“We made it,” they told each other.

“Man, thank goodness we got here.”

Just then, Seahawks general manager John Schneider walked past Love and Schneider. Somehow, over the raucous celebration, the GM had heard what they said.

Schneider smiled and said: “You’re welcome, guys.”

Schneider signed Love, a versatile safety and former Giants team captain, in free agency from New York in March 2023. Seven months later, the GM traded with the Giants to get Williams, their one-time Pro Bowl defensive end, to join Love on Seattle’s defense.

Love and Williams have played 18 NFL seasons between the two of them. They’ve been selected to four Pro Bowl teams combined. Yet they’d only been to the playoffs one time, at the end of the Giants’ 2022 season, just before they became Seahawks. That was when sixth-seeded New York made the playoffs as a wild card in the NFC.

Now that they are division champions on the Seahawks’ bye through this weekend’s wild-card games, Williams says that Giants playoff appearance doesn’t really count for him — not compared to this Seahawks way into the postseason. That time, Williams, Love and those Giants went straight into their first playoff game one week after grinding their way into the back of the playoff field through the regular-season finale.

This time, Love and Williams are in the weird position of dialing it down this week. They don’t have a playoff game until next week. The Seahawks practiced for the first time this week on Wednesday. They will practice again Thursday. They will be off Friday, Saturday and Sunday while they learn who their divisional-round opponent will be next week. Seattle is likely to play Saturday, Jan. 17 at Lumen Field. Williams said he and his teammates aren’t treating this like their bye week in the regular season. Too much is at stake now.

“Yeah, definitely something I haven’t had, but I appreciate the way the guys are going about it,” he said. “We’re not treating it like a regular season bye week where guys are flying to Mexico and Hawai’i and enjoying their time.

“I think we really celebrated that win against the Niners, but immediately that next day you could tell guys were like, ‘Hey, the job is not done. We got a lot of work to do.’

“That’s still the same mindset right now. Guys are going to take a few days away, mentally, physically take care of their bodies. But I think we’re all focused right now.” Leonard Williams’, Julian Love’s paths here

Williams has played 11 NFL seasons. The first eight, he was with the New York Jets, who drafted him in the first round out of USC in 2015, then the Giants. His teams finished above .500 in just two of those eight New York seasons.

He’s played in 175 career games. He talks about the end of his career more than it beginning.

This is as close as he’s felt to the Super Bowl, two home wins away.

“One of the only guys on the team who really knows my journey is Julian,” Williams said. “We just talked about our path.

“I’ve just been so thankful to be here, and so thankful for this season. The way everything has been playing out is really incredible, to be having this type of season toward the end of my career.”

Love, the seventh-year veteran and 2023 Pro Bowl safety from Notre Dame, is back from missing nine games with a hamstring injury. He holds down the back end. That and Williams’ dynamic play across the front line are large reasons the Seahawks led the NFL in scoring defense this season. This is the first time Seattle’s allowed the fewest points in the league since the famed “Legion of Boom” defenses did it four straight years while going to two Super Bowls and winning one from 2012-15.

These Seahawks got that distinction Sunday. Rookie quarterback Riley Leonard and Indianapolis scored 30 points on playoff-bound Houston in their final regular-season game. That, coupled with the Seahawks allowing only three points at San Francisco Saturday night, pushed Seattle to the No. 1 scoring defense.

“That’s cool,” Love said.

“Thank goodness for Riley Leonard, Notre Dame man.” Seattle’s “Dark Side Defense”

Williams, defensive tackle Jarran Reed, Pro Bowl end DeMarcus Lawrence and other veteran teammates were talking at the beginning of the season about their L.O.B. predecessors. It was when they were gaining belief this defense was similarly elite.

“I think throughout the season we were just feeling like we had a really special defense, you know, special players, and we were also just doing special things,” Williams said. “We always hear of Legion of Boom, especially being in here. We were starting to get to a point like ‘Hey, maybe we deserve our own name, you know? I think guys started coming up with names and stuff like that.

“And I think Dark Side kind of stuck with us.”

Love and Williams, the back and front stars of this Dark Side Defense, know this is the best chance of their careers for the ultimate in their profession: To win the Super Bowl.

“I mean, it was like training camp where me and (Williams) are talking to a young Nick (Emmanwori, Seattle’s do-it-all, rookie safety). I’m like, ‘We understand you’re a rookie, but there is urgency here,’” Love said Wednesday.

“A lot of these guys, I guess myself included, it’s like you go years in a career just trying to grind to make a playoff spot. Now we got a shot to do something special.”

Love told the 21-year-old Emmanwori: “You’re going to be a part of it, but we need you to be a part of it this year.

“There is no weaning process.’”

That’s what Love and Williams thought of as they hugged amid the cigars, the music and the celebration of the division title last weekend in that locker room Santa Clara. It’s where they are striving to be again Feb. 8 for Super Bowl 60, also at Levi’s Stadium.

“We embraced and just said, ‘Man, thank goodness we got here,’” Love said.

“I know me and him, obviously we’re close. And it’s special to be in this moment.”