RENTON — This being the Pete Carroll-era Seattle Seahawks, Leonard Williams’ introduction to the team Wednesday wasn’t quite what he expected.
Instead of the usual routine for his first team meeting of standing up, stating his name and maybe saying something about himself, Williams was called by Carroll to the front of the auditorium at the VMAC and placed into a basketball shooting contest with guard Anthony Bradford.
Whoever made the most of what are about 15-foot shots in 30 seconds would be deemed the winner.
With fellow defensive lineman Jarran Reed rebounding for him, Williams squeaked out the victory.
“I got five shots in 30 seconds,” Williams said when he met the media before he headed out to his first practice. “Apparently that’s a good score.”
Seahawks safety Julian Love, Williams’ teammate with the Giants the last four years, concurred.
“Five is solid,” Love said. “If you touch five, that’s a good performance. Anything below that, then you get booed, maybe.”
His first glimpse of the Carroll Seahawks fit right in with what he’d heard about the team from friends such as Love and safety Jamal Adams, a teammate with the New York Jets from 2017-19.
“I love it because it breeds competition in here,” said Williams, who arrived in Seattle on Tuesday after the Seahawks traded a 2024 second-round pick and a 2025 fifth-rounder to the Giants to get him. “Everything they seem to do here is about competition and I think that translates onto the field. It just creates a competitive mindset in the team and I love that.”
As Love said, doing things a little differently fits right in with Williams’ personality: “His hobbies are pretty different. He’s a unique guy.”
Williams, who grew up in Daytona Beach, Fla., counts among his off-field interests spear fishing, the outdoors and just about anything involving water.
During his time at USC from 2012-14, he was known to get around campus on a skateboard, sometimes ferrying around a pet iguana on his shoulder.
According to a New York Times story, he sculpted a figurine of Bob Marley for a ceramics class that was so good his teacher told him to enter it in an exhibit of art works by university athletes.
It was at USC where he acquired his nickname “Big Cat” as well as began a relationship with the daughter of NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott, Hailey Lott, that continues to this day.
As for the nickname?
“Just growing up I used to wear my hair out a lot more and people thought I looked like a lion,” he said. “And then people at USC started saying that I was like big but also agile like a big cat. And then that’s when people started calling me ‘Big Cat.’”
The Seahawks hope he might be called the missing piece to a defense that has rapidly improved since Week 1 but which can never have enough playmakers, especially up front.
Williams has experience playing the Seahawks’ main interior defensive-line positions — nose tackle and the three- and five-technique defense ends. He says he prefers the three-tech spot — which means lining up between the guard and tackle — but said, “I’m willing to play wherever they want me to play.”
Said Love: “He’s the perfect three technique. He plays physical, he’s really good against the run, but he can also rush the passer. He’s been doing it at a high level for a while.”
While the Seahawks have been happy with their three starting interior linemen — Reed, Dre’Mont Jones and Mario Edwards Jr. — the addition of Williams not only adds a potentially elite playmaker but makes the line deeper.
Reed has played the most snaps of any Seahawks defensive linemen at 65.3% followed by Jones at 64.1%. They may see those snap percentages come down some. Reed said that’s fine with him.
“Of course when it gets down to the nitty-gritty, we all want to play, we all want to home in,” Reed said. “But we’ve got to stay fresh. We don’t want no drop-offs when we rotate. That’s what I see is bringing another player in who is going to come in and fit right in with us. … It just opens up more for our coaches to do more with us.”
That will begin Sunday as Carroll said Williams shouldn’t need much time to get up to speed on his role with the Seahawks.
“He’ll be able to get it done this week,” Carroll said before breaking into a smile. “Really good chance he’ll be active this week.”
Williams has experience with a quick transition. He was traded midyear in 2019 from the Jets — who made him the sixth overall pick of the 2015 draft — to the Giants.
“It definitely helps that I’ve done it before,” he said. “I know how to prepare myself a little bit.”
As he noted Wednesday, he didn’t have to move then.
This time, he’s going across the country. He has some friends on the team already and has crossed paths a few times with Carroll. He also remains close with Ed Orgeron, a former Carroll assistant at USC who recruited Williams from Mainland High in Daytona Beach to USC during a second coaching stint at the school.
“He was a big reason why I went to USC,” Williams said of Orgeron, who served as assistant head coach, defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator under Carroll from 2001-04. “He has a great personality, great energy. And Pete Carroll is very similar.”
Williams said he’d been told by Giants officials that while the team wasn’t shopping him, other teams had inquired — including the Seahawks — and that a trade could happen.
When the news came Monday, he said there were “some highs and lows” in embracing a move to a winning team and saying goodbye to a team and city he had come to enjoy.
“I think this is going to be a fun change for me,” he said.
Williams knows the future is far from certain.
He can be a free agent at the end of the season, and while the thought is that the Seahawks wouldn’t have given up as much as they did for him without making an effort to re-sign him, there are no promises.
For now, Williams says he’s only looking to Sunday in Baltimore.
“Free agency was coming up regardless, so it’s not something that’s been on my mind,” Williams said. “I try to be as present as possible. I just have to focus on what I can do for the team this week against Baltimore.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
