> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Leonard Williams, Seahawks Ready to Take ‘Darkside’ Defense to New Heights in 2026 - URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/leonard-williams-seattle-seahawks-dominant-defense-next-level-2026/ - Published: 2026-06-15T00:53:27.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-08T05:52:41.000Z - Author: Corbin Smith - Tags: Features, Seahawks, Leonard Williams \[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1188"\] ![ Seattle Seahawks defensive tackle Leonard Williams prepares to shed a blocking dummy during a drill at the team’s annual mandatory minicamp. Credit: Corbin Smith/Emerald City Spectrum ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1d/f2/1df2f77b-83dd-4bc0-a6d2-6d1bb5df89a3/content/images/2026/10/williams-format-original.jpg) Seattle Seahawks defensive tackle Leonard Williams prepares to shed a blocking dummy during a drill at the team’s annual mandatory minicamp. Credit: Corbin Smith/Emerald City Spectrum \[/caption\] RENTON, Wash. - Mere hours away from school being out for the summer, at least in NFL terms, the Seattle Seahawks could have gone through the motions riding out their final minicamp practice before six weeks off. But that wasn’t the case at all for the Seahawks, with the stakes clearly raised even without pads on and contact prohibited on June 11\. During a spirited two-hour session at the VMAC, while Sam Darnold and Jaxon Smith-Njigba performed their usual theatrics linking up for multiple touchdowns, the defense got the last laughs, stifling all three offensive units in an utterly dominant closing red zone situational drill to the delight of cornerback Devon Witherspoon. “Whole lotta ass kicking!” Witherspoon shouted emphatically as he jogged to the final team breakdown for the spring. Long before that defensive beatdown to close out the practice, cornerback Noah Igbinoghene and safety D’Anthony Bell returned interceptions for touchdowns during team scrimmage periods and rookies Julian Neal and Michael Dansby added picks of their own during 7-on-7 red zone drills, giving coach Mike Macdonald’s unit a decisive “win” to wrap up the offseason program. Why such intensity in a mid-June minicamp with the regular season still almost three full months away? Set to finally receive their Super Bowl rings later in the day, the excitement over the monumental ceremony may have added a bit more juice to the occasion for the Seahawks than usual this time of year. For some such as veteran defensive tackle Leonard Williams, trying to sleep the night before became quite difficult with the anticipation building to a fever pitch. And yet, as Williams pointed out moments after exiting the field on Thursday, such exuberance and fervor isn’t a surprise for an offseason practice in Seattle. It’s an expectation that permeates throughout the building all year long, with the eagerness to see the new rings only adding a cherry on top of the norm. “We're excited. But I think it's just our culture. I think that's what I love about it,” Williams said. “I think regardless of the situation, regardless if we were getting our rings today or it's the last day of practice, breaking for OTAs, I think we just play with passion, energy. We love each other. We love coming to work. So I think any given day, we're having these type of practices.” The 2025 season proved to be one for the ages for Williams and the Seahawks. Before hoisting the Lombardi Trophy at Levis Stadium, home of the bitter NFC West rival 49ers, they secured a franchise record 14 regular season wins to win the NFC West for the first time since 2020\. Leading the charge, Macdonald’s defense squeezed past the Texans to finish first in points allowed (17.2) in the season finale along with allowing the fewest yards per rush (3.7) and rushing touchdowns (nine). Anchoring a ferocious, tone-setting front line, Williams garnered All-Pro recognition for the first time in his fantastic career after being snubbed on several occasions, finishing with team highs in sacks (seven) and quarterback hits (22). But he had plenty of help, including budding star defensive tackle Byron Murphy next to him in the interior, as the former Texas star matched his veteran superior with a career-best seven sacks and tacked on seven tackles for loss stuffing the run in the trenches. Ageless wonder Jarran Reed kept playing at a high level as well, adding eight quarterback hits and stellar run defense in 13 games. If there’s a primary reason to be bullish on Seattle repeating as Super Bowl champions, general manager John Schneider did a remarkable job of keeping most of the roster intact, as only five free agents departed during the offseason. Along with all but two starters returning, this includes bringing back the entire interior defensive line, headlined by the trio of Williams, Murphy, and Reed with youngsters Rylie Mills and Mike Morris behind them and nose tackle Brandon Pili re-signed to provide impressive continuity for the best defense in football. Having gone to battle in the regular season and playoffs with all of his line mates, Williams called such personnel retention “huge” for Seattle as it begins its title defense, believing the improvement of players such as Mills, who missed most of his rookie year recovering from a torn ACL before recording a crucial sack in the Super Bowl, will only take the unit to another stratosphere this season. “When I can trust the guy next to me, know the guys next to me, we play on a different tempo, we sometimes can just look at each other and know how we're going to rush up front, how we're going to play blocks,” Williams explained. “I think we've done a good job here of keeping the majority of the same guys around each other. That allows for culture to grow.” While continuity and familiarity serve as key ingredients to the Seahawks’ chances of competing for another Lombardi, Williams sees Macdonald’s ability to constantly evolve and adapt to the talent in his scheme as another major advantage for the team rolling into 2026. Up front, Williams, Murphy, and Reed all have thrived as movable chess pieces who can play multiple alignments on the defensive line, and Mills and Morris also offer their own positional flexibility to play inside and out. Macdonald has also expressed excitement about second-year defender Jared Ivey as a player who can line up everywhere from two-point outside linebacker to 3-tech defensive tackle, providing him and defensive coordinator Aden Durde with no shortage of versatility to work with. Where Macdonald will continue to have the most fun as a mad scientist, however, will be at linebacker and in the secondary. Returning starters Ernest Jones IV and Drake Thomas bring well-rounded skill sets to the table as do-it-all linebackers who can blitz, cover, and run down plays sideline to sideline, while 6-3, 230-pound unicorn Nick Emmanwori has been receiving extra practice work with the EDGE group this spring to expand on a toolbox that already includes playing both safety spots, off-ball linebacker, and slot cornerback at a high level. Away from Emmanwori, Witherspoon remains arguably the most multi-dimensional cornerback in the sport, capable of shutting down receivers on the boundary along with being a menace blitzing and destroying the run from the nickel role inside. After losing Riq Woolen and Coby Bryant to Philadelphia and Chicago as free agents, Seattle brought in Igbinoghene, a former first round pick out of Auburn, along with ex-Indianapolis starting safety Rodney Thomas II, signing two players with their own positional multiplicity on defense and extensive special teams value. “That's something about our defense that makes it great, is we try to hold the pen last in all situations,” Williams commented. “Again, we have been learning each other for the last two years. Going on Mike's third year here, people should have more of a grasp of the way he calls defenses, what type of defenses he's calling in certain situations, allowing us to play ahead of the snap pretty much. The more we diagnose the defense and get used to all those moving pieces and changes, that's just going to allow us to play that much faster.” That trend continued into the 2026 NFL Draft, as the Seahawks invested a second round pick in TCU safety Bud Clark, who has been seeing action at both safety positions as well as the slot during the offseason program. Schneider also picked three cornerbacks - Neal, Dansby, and Andre Fuller - to immediately compete against Igbinoghene and Nehemiah Pritchett for the third spot behind Witherspoon and Josh Jobe. From that group, Neal and Fuller have played safety and nickel previously in college, while Dansby could be a candidate to start working in the slot come training camp. From Williams’ perspective, while filling the holes vacated by Woolen and Bryant’s exits could be seen as significant obstacles for the defending champs, Macdonald has already demonstrated what he’s capable of doing with force multipliers who can line up at numerous positions in his system. Whether via free agency with Igbinoghene and EDGE rusher Dante Fowler Jr. or the draft with Clark, Neal, or another newcomer in the secondary, he has the utmost confidence the coaching staff will get the most out of the new personnel to go with the impressive returning cast of stars. With outstanding attendance at the offseason program once again and young players quickly acclimating as “sponges of the game,” Williams believes the Seahawks are just getting started with the foundation only being just laid in Macdonald’s first two years, opening the door for their “Darkside” defense to somehow be even more dangerous in 2026. “To me, I really just see our culture elevate to another level. I feel like last year we started putting the mix together, all the ingredients, all that type of stuff. This year you really see it boiling, becoming more just of a foundation. To me, the culture is the biggest thing that we need here. Guys are going to come and go, like I said. I feel like if we have a culture and foundation like that, we'll always be a winning team.”