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Leonard Williams On Mentoring Younger Players, Preparing For The Buccaneers · Seahawks Press Pass

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  Speaker 1: Ten years ago maybe.
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  Speaker 2: So, I thought you posted online about your recovery and
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  Speaker 2: all that you do for that. How long you've been
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  Speaker 2: doing all those things? What's the most recent edition.
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  Speaker 1: I think I've been doing like the hydro therapy for
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  Speaker 1: a while now, for like maybe like the last six
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  Speaker 1: seven years. It's funny, when I was young, I used
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  Speaker 1: to like take pride stupidly and like not doing recovery
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  Speaker 1: and being like, you know, okay physically. But now that
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  Speaker 1: I'm you know, older and been playing for a long
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  Speaker 1: time and want to continue playing for a long time,
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  Speaker 1: I think recovery is like a big part of my
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  Speaker 1: routine these days.
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  Speaker 2: When you're in that hyperbaric chamber, you have your podsit,
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  Speaker 2: you're listening to something.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's actually the newest like addition that I've been
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  Speaker 1: doing lately. I started doing it like this past offseason,
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  Speaker 1: and we would go to a facility where they had
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  Speaker 1: like a it was a little more like intense version
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  Speaker 1: of it that would go up to like one hundred
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  Speaker 1: percent extra oxygen or something like that, and while you're
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  Speaker 1: in there you have to equalize and stuff like that.
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  Speaker 1: But I have like a smaller version that does like
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  Speaker 1: twenty five percent extra oxygen at home, and I just
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  Speaker 1: like bring my iPad in there and watch film or
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  Speaker 1: I'm just like playing video like a little handheld video
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  Speaker 1: game or listening to music or something like that. But
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  Speaker 1: it's a nice way to just decompress and also get
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  Speaker 1: some therapy at the same time, some treatment. I don't
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  Speaker 1: go to sleep in there, but I do set an
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  Speaker 1: alarm just in case I accidentally fall asleep. What do
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  Speaker 1: you feel like when you get out. I don't think
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  Speaker 1: you feel like an immediate result, like physically, but I
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  Speaker 1: think like I just my energy level feels a little better,
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  Speaker 1: and then it also helps me like sleep better at night.
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  Speaker 1: Do you see that.
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  Speaker 2: When did you have that switch turn where you started
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  Speaker 2: to want to do the recovery?
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  Speaker 1: What part of your created you kind of change your
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  Speaker 1: thinking on that. I think it was around like years
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  Speaker 1: seven or eight. I had like a small like bone
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  Speaker 1: spur in my elbow and I had to play with
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  Speaker 1: like an elbow brace, and I just remember that was
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  Speaker 1: like a pretty tough season for me. We were like
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  Speaker 1: losing a lot. I was pretty banged up physically, and
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  Speaker 1: then I just started thinking more about longevity of my
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  Speaker 1: career and like post career as well, how much longer
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  Speaker 1: do you want to play? I'm not sure. I want
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  Speaker 1: to play, like as long as possible, as long as
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  Speaker 1: I still love it, as long as I'm still feeling
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  Speaker 1: good physically mentally, which you know, I feel like I
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  Speaker 1: have a few more years left to me of that.
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  Speaker 1: But you know, it's hard to say I want to
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  Speaker 1: play you know, five, ten. However, you know, it's hard
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  Speaker 1: to put a number on it at this point because
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  Speaker 1: you know, let's say I say five, and then by
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  Speaker 1: the time five comes around, I want to play five more,
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  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So's it's hard to put
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  Speaker 1: a number on it. But right now I feel pretty good.
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  Speaker 1: What's that. Yeah. I talked to him after the game actually,
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  Speaker 1: and like I was just saying, you know, I respect
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  Speaker 1: him a lot, and he's been playing for a long time,
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  Speaker 1: and we sent each other some jerseys this h this
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  Speaker 1: past week.
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  Speaker 3: To be dominant to want to continue to play.
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  Speaker 1: Uh hmm. That's a good question. I think, like the
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  Speaker 1: majority of my career, I've wanted to be the starter,
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  Speaker 1: the guy on defense, the one that you know, teams
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  Speaker 1: have to prepare for and things like that. So I
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  Speaker 1: think it would be a transition mentally, if I wasn't
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  Speaker 1: that type of guy anymore, and I think I would
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  Speaker 1: have to reassess if I wanted to continue playing or not.
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  Speaker 1: Somewhat to that.
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  Speaker 3: Point, the most impactful defensive lines are an unselfish unit.
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  Speaker 3: What's the best way to create buy in with that
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  Speaker 3: unselfishness with all of the guys who account on sacks
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  Speaker 3: and stats to get paid.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, for me being older and like I just
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  Speaker 1: said about reevaluating myself, if I wasn't that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: premier guy on the defense anymore, It's more of like,
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  Speaker 1: how can I get back to the young guys. How
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  Speaker 1: can I help guys like Biron Murphy? How can I
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  Speaker 1: teach them? You know everything that you know I've learned
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  Speaker 1: throughout my career, whether that's you know how to run
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  Speaker 1: games up front, you know how to prepare your body,
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  Speaker 1: how to take care of yourself, how to eat right.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lot of ways you can show up as
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  Speaker 1: a teammate that are not just stats on the field.
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  Speaker 2: You talked about go ahead.
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  Speaker 3: I was gonna say, is that something that you have
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  Speaker 3: to educate some of the younger players or newer players
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  Speaker 3: on and not necessarily.
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  Speaker 1: This group, but just in gen Yeah, for sure. And
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  Speaker 1: it's like I just joked about, you know, not being
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  Speaker 1: that type of guy when I was young that wanted
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  Speaker 1: to take care of my body. You know, now I
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  Speaker 1: can kind of show guys that, you know, if you
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  Speaker 1: start early, maybe you could play even longer than me.
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  Speaker 1: And uh, you know, pretty much like learn from my
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  Speaker 1: mistakes and learn from the good that I've done as well.
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  Speaker 2: You mentioned the games and stunts. A high percentage of
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  Speaker 2: your pressure is not yours, but the defensive pressures are
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  Speaker 2: coming on games, and you also said that those can
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  Speaker 2: kind of make it easier for quarterbacks to kind of
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  Speaker 2: escape the pocket. So what do you guys need to
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  Speaker 2: do to to kind of get more pressure without the
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  Speaker 2: stunts of the games.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I think we've actually been doing a great
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  Speaker 1: job of getting home with just four down guys. There's
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  Speaker 1: a lot of times where we even have like simulated
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  Speaker 1: pressures where it looks like a pressure, it looks like
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  Speaker 1: a blitz. Well it is a pressure, but it looks
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  Speaker 1: like a blitz. But we're still only sending four guys.
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  Speaker 1: I think we're doing a good job of that right now,
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  Speaker 1: and I think as long as we continue to do that,
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  Speaker 1: then it opens up the rest of the defense.
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  Speaker 2: Say, when you put on tape of Baker Mayfield, what
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  Speaker 2: stands out about.
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  Speaker 1: What he does?
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  Speaker 3: Quarter?
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  Speaker 1: To me, it's just his energy, his demeanor, his you know,
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  Speaker 1: he's a competitor, and you can tell it shows up
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  Speaker 1: on tape, and you could tell his team feeds off
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  Speaker 1: of it. You could tell the rest of the team
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  Speaker 1: kind of wants to live and play the same style
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  Speaker 1: of football that he does. And I think, you know,
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  Speaker 1: like we just talked about getting home up front, I
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  Speaker 1: think this is an important game. Rushing as one, he
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  Speaker 1: does a good job of getting out of the pocket.
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  Speaker 1: He likes to run vertical out of the pocket, and
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  Speaker 1: when he does, he extends drives.
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  Speaker 2: Can that be a harder thing to Gen's point about
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  Speaker 2: the end of office for like younger players to understand
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  Speaker 2: though that maybe I don't get it as many sacks,
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  Speaker 2: but the defense as a whole could be better if
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  Speaker 2: we all play in a certain word.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's tough, but it's a double a
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  Speaker 1: short to me, it makes sense. It's that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: players want to see their stats, they want to get
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  Speaker 1: their fruits of their labors and things like that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: especially in a market market nowadays, where as a D lineman, Uh,
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  Speaker 1: that's what people want to see from you is sacks.
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  Speaker 1: But you know, sometimes you have to remind those young
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  Speaker 1: guys that you know, they're they're being effective, they're helping
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  Speaker 1: the defense, they're stopping the run, they're getting pressures, they're
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  Speaker 1: getting in the face of the quarterback, making them call
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  Speaker 1: you know, air and throws and stuff like that. So
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot of ways that you can affect the
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  Speaker 1: game as a D lineman without you know, sacks on
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  Speaker 1: the stat sheet.
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  Speaker 2: You spent a fair amount of time talking to a
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  Speaker 2: great Zabel during training camp. I'm curious, so those conversations
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  Speaker 2: have continued and what you've seen from.
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  Speaker 1: From him, Yeah, those conversations for sure continued. You know,
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  Speaker 1: he even came up to me right before one run
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  Speaker 1: ones yesterday. He's like, hey, can you pay attention to
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  Speaker 1: my reps and let me know what you're seeing and
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  Speaker 1: stuff like that, And to me, that's the one thing
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  Speaker 1: I like about him so much as a rookie, as
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  Speaker 1: a first rounder especially, I think sometimes you see first
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  Speaker 1: rounders sometimes come in and they feel like they know
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  Speaker 1: it all because you know, they've been drafted high and
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  Speaker 1: they've been successful college and things like that, and and
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  Speaker 1: Gray came in just like a open sheet, just wanted
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  Speaker 1: to learn as much as possible. You know, he's humble
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  Speaker 1: enough to know that he has some room to grow
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  Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and he's eager to do it.
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  Speaker 2: You had conversations like that with other offensive linemen in.
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  Speaker 1: Your career, Yeah, I have for sure, even with other
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  Speaker 1: vets like me and Charles talk with each other all
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  Speaker 1: the time as well, And you know, when we have
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  Speaker 1: good reps against each other, we're kind of like reminding
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  Speaker 1: each other like what worked well here and what it's
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  Speaker 1: not working and stuff like that against each other. So
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  Speaker 1: you know, iron sharpens iron and we know that. And
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  Speaker 1: to me, this is one of the first times I've
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  Speaker 1: seen a young guy in the opposite side of the
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  Speaker 1: ball just go out of his way so often to
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  Speaker 1: get information from the other side of the ball.
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  Speaker 3: When you were miked up in Pittsburgh, I think he
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  Speaker 3: before the game, I think he gave you some sort
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  Speaker 3: of tip on a alignment that his school had faced
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  Speaker 3: in college and that ended up coming in handy.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so some of the offensive line does that as well,
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  Speaker 1: where you know they know certain guys on the other side.
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  Speaker 1: You know, like if we're going to up against the
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  Speaker 1: offensive line right now, they may you know, it's a
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  Speaker 1: certain guy and their tendencies, and they'll come up to
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  Speaker 1: me and let some of the veteran guys know their
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  Speaker 1: tendencies and what beats.
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  Speaker 2: Them a lot. There's really a lot of legends in
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  Speaker 2: town this week for the game for the fifties celebration.
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  Speaker 1: Is that something?
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  Speaker 2: Do you like try to pick those guys' brain, spain
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  Speaker 2: time of them? Are you just so locked in on
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  Speaker 2: the game you don't pay attention to the.
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  Speaker 1: Rest of that stuff. H Yeah. I mean for me,
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  Speaker 1: it's like I might see them in the locker room,
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  Speaker 1: I might see them around, But to me, I'm just
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  Speaker 1: staying on my routine, staying on my you know, preparation
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  Speaker 1: for the game. If I run into them and I
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  Speaker 1: happen to see them, I'm obviously gonna say hi and
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  Speaker 1: show respect, But I'm not going out of my way
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  Speaker 1: to find any of those guys because I'm just so
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  Speaker 1: focused on my routine and what I have to do
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  Speaker 1: to win the game.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you appreciate it, Yeah, thank you.