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# No Respect? Seahawks’ Leonard Williams Continues to Be Criminally Underrated Among NFL Stars
- URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/no-respect-seattle-seahawks-leonard-williams-criminally-underrated/
- Published: 2025-06-30T18:46:56.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-08T05:59:06.000Z
- Author: Corbin Smith
- Tags: Analysis, Seahawks, Leonard Williams

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1d/f2/1df2f77b-83dd-4bc0-a6d2-6d1bb5df89a3/content/images/2026/10/revised-twitter-template--281-29-format-original-5.png)

For those who have had the privilege of covering Leonard Williams during his illustrious NFL career, few players do a better job of pulling back the curtain and helping media members do their jobs. He’s the consummate professional and an easy-going person to chop it up with, including diving into Xs and Os for those who desire such conversations such as myself.

But even the best, most optimistic players can grow tired of being short-changed or overlooked, and in the case of Williams, he couldn’t have been more visibly aggravated last January when he learned that he had not been selected to the Pro Bowl despite having arguably his best season as a pro. He received the news mere days before he surpassed double digit sacks for the second time in his career in a season-ending win over the Rams.

"It's pretty disappointing, if I'm being honest," Williams told reporters on January 2, later adding, "Luckily, I found out about it yesterday, so I was able to get out some of my frustrations at home and things like that before I came into the building today. But either way, it's frustrating, as much as I don't want to make it seem like it matters.”

On June 30, that latest snub came back into focus in part due to his latest inclusion in the annual NFL Top 100 players countdown, where Williams returned to the list ranked 99th by his peers and coaches. Though the player would likely take the high road if asked whether he should be ranked higher or not in what should be viewed as just another list that drops in the dead time between offseason programs and training camp, it does matter to the players and if there are 98 players in the league today that are better than him, I have prime real estate for sale on Mars.

Since coming into the league as a top-10 draft pick with the Jets in 2015, Williams has lived up to expectations and performed as one of the most consistent all-around interior defensive linemen in the NFL, even if the teams he has played for have struggled more often than not with just one playoff appearance. In 10 seasons with three teams, he has amassed 575 combined tackles, 54.5 sacks, 201 quarterback hits, and 84 tackles for loss, but that production has resulted in just two Pro Bowl selections and no All-Pro honors.

One of those Pro Bowl selections came days after Williams aired his grievances with reporters, as he landed a spot on the team as an injury replacement after initially being tabbed as an alternate, a possibility he didn’t care to talk about when he first learned he had been snubbed again. Keeping that in mind, he has only been voted as a Pro Bowler outright once in 10 seasons, a remarkable factoid illustrating the ludicrous amount of disrespect he has received over the years.

What’s even more alarming? The fact that Williams has somehow never even been a Second-Team All-Pro, particularly last season when he narrowly missed out on such honors with a stat line that stood out amongst his defensive line peers in both conferences.

Just how dominate was “Big Cat” in 2024? Anchoring coach Mike Macdonald’s ascending defense, which ranked in the top five in scoring from Week 10 on, he nearly equaled his previous career high with 11 sacks, tied Chiefs star Chris Jones with 15 quarterback hits, the most among defensive tackles, and ranked fifth in total pressures (55), receiving a league-best 12.6 Pass Rush Productivity rating from Pro Football Focus on true pass sets. Given those numbers, calling him a one-man wrecking crew rushing from the interior would be a tremendous understatement.

But Williams did not play the role of one-trick pony, either. While his pass rushing contributions alone warranted All-Pro distinction, Williams also graded out as one of PFF’s top five run defending defensive tackles (79.5) last season, ranking in the top 10 in run stops (26) and run stop percentage (10.7 percent). He also picked off former Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers and returned the interception more than 90 yards for a touchdown to go with a new career-best in tackles for loss (16), stuffing the stat sheet in every way, shape, and form.

“He's one of our driving forces.,” Macdonald said of Williams after June’s mandatory minicamp. “You have to give him a lot of credit on his approach since we met him a year ago. We knew he was an awesome guy. We knew he was a great football player, but what we needed from him was more in terms of a leadership role and asserting himself and his style. At this point in your career to challenge yourself to take it to another level, I think that speaks volumes for who he is.”

Those efforts did lead to Williams receiving a handful of votes for Defensive Player of the Year honors, but he still didn’t get enough votes to crack either of the AP’s All-Pro teams, coming up just short behind Cameron Heyward, Chris Jones, Zach Allen, and Jalen Carter with 41 total votes and eight first place votes. Though those four players all were deserving in their own right, Williams had more sacks than any of them, had more run stops than any of them, and obviously had more pick sixes than any of them, making this latest slight all the more mind-boggling and borderline enraging.

As Williams commented last January, at the end of the day, Pro Bowl and All-Pros are important but “don’t mean everything.” From Macdonald to assistant coaches to his teammates to members of the front office, the nationally underappreciated veteran has everyone in Seattle in his corner and earned a paycheck fitting for his talents from the franchise, receiving the respect he rightfully deserves from the people around him that matter the most.

But when it comes to building a legacy, Williams has a resume wrongfully lacking accolades that accurately depict the true impact he has made and continues to make between the lines. Not being a First-Team All-Pro last season stands out as the biggest whiff yet, and considering the Seahawks won 10 games and were far from a bad football team, that makes it even more laughable.

What will it take to finally break through and put Williams on the map outside of the Pacific Northwest? Whether fair or not, aside from coming close to replicating his gaudy numbers from a year ago or even surpassing them, being a driving force behind Seattle making the playoffs in 2025 may be the only way to thwart that narrative and firmly enter the discussion as one of the NFL’s best defenders at any position, let alone just in the trenches.