Seahawks Star Leonard Williams Somehow Still NFL’s Most Disrespected Player

The nature of being a “12” is that of feeling consistently overlooked and underappreciated. Seattle isn’t the same media market darling like L.A., the Bay Area, or New York. The Seahawks don’t have the glitz and glamour of the Cowboys or the ironclad history of the Steelers.

What the Seahawks do have, however, is a franchise that has won two Super Bowls inside of 15 years and one of the loudest, most passionate fanbases in all of sports. Just like its fans, the Seahawks themselves have players that are consistently overlooked, underappreciated, and unheralded despite being among the best at their respective positions.

Lenard Williams has the résumé of a star and the recognition of a complementary piece. Part of the problem is the defensive tackle position itself and how we measure it. Interior defenders who do not pile up double-digit sacks every year get treated as role players even when they occupy two blockers and free everyone else. Even that description is disrespectful to what Williams means to Seattle’s now famous “Dark Side” defense.

ESPN ranked Williams as the No. 1 defensive tackle in the league after asking league scouts and executives. One of the astonishing stats they brought up was his 120 run-stop wins when double-teamed over the past three seasons, tied for the most in the NFL in that span. His 24 tackles on pass plays in 2025 were six more than any other interior linemen.

So, the narrative that Williams doesn’t have the stats to be considered the most elite defensive tackle does not really carry weight either.

Media narratives still lean on the easy counting stats, which is lazy and tired. Williams talks with his pads. He takes the “warrior in the garden” persona to heart. Off the field, he’s as quality of a family man as you will find. In the locker room, he is truly one of the leaders and lynchpins of this team. On the field, his nickname “The Big Cat” is fitting, given his ferocious nature and frighteningly unexpected agility given his size.

If anything, Williams needs to be appreciated for being the first wave in a tsunami of changes Seattle made to create this new Super Bowl-winning identity. On October 30, 2023, the New York Giants dealt him to the Seahawks for a 2024 second round pick and 2025 fifth rounder. That was the tail-end of the Pete Carroll era in Seattle.

Instead of letting a pending free agent walk, general manager John Schneider made re-signing Williams a priority in March 2024, locking him into a three-year, $64.5 million deal right as the franchise parted ways with Pete Carroll and hired Baltimore defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald. Williams later said the idea of playing for a defensive-minded head coach who had just run the NFL’s top unit in Baltimore was a major reason he stayed. That laid the groundwork for what Seattle has now.

Despite league executives and scouts calling him the best defensive tackle in football and him racking up tackles and stops while being consistently double-teamed, however, Williams was somehow left out of the NFL’s Top 100 players list completely this year. Make it make sense? Being a three-time Pro Bowler with zero First Team All-Selections despite being a dominant interior defensive tackle for most of his 11-year career feels way too low as well.

Naturally, players at his position get overlooked unless they have eye-popping sack numbers. But Williams has 18 sacks over the last two years, which is among the leaders at the position. Guys at his position like Jeffery Simmons and Chris Jones seem to get more love despite similar or inferior numbers to Williams, who no longer has the built in excuse for critics of playing for bad football teams as he did for much of his first 10 years in the league.

Williams doesn’t get the flowers he deserves. Yet, one league executive called him “the most important player on that Super Bowl team.”

If the Seahawks’ defense is the Dark Side, the Big Cat is Darth Vader. Now, he’s here to rule the empire for a few more years after inking a three-year, $90 million extension last week, and more ammunition to fuel the fire as he continues to be criminally overlooked.