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Leonard Williams: "Everyone Has Done A Good Job Of Handling Success" · Seahawks Press Pass

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Good.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: There's always going to be a lot of excitement around
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: week one, but there's a lot extra happening this week.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: What are the conversations that you're having with some of
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: the guys in the locker room about keeping fall first
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: and foremost?
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that's something that we do
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  Speaker 1: great around here is just keeping football the main thing.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: We're obviously focusing on our opponent that's at hand right now.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: We're not focusing on the fact that we just played
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: them in the Super Bowl. I feel like they brought
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: in a lot of new people, and we're studying as if,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: you know, the same way we would every week. We
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: are excited to just be back at home in the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: stadium again for the first time in 2026 and, you know,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: seeing the energy from the 12s and all the fans.
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  Speaker 3: You guys have been talking about, you know, running it forward,
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: going back to the off-season workouts. Now that you've gotten
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: this far to week one, how do you feel like
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: players have handled kind of all that extra that could
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: have been a distraction this year?
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: To me, better than I would have expected, to be honest.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I don't see a single person in the building patting
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: themselves on the back for what we did last year.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I think everybody in the building understands that we have
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: to start from the bottom all over again. To get
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: to the top of that mountain, we've got to start
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: from the bottom. And, you know, every single person is
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: taking it day by day, trying to increase and get
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: better as a player. You know, everybody, regardless of what
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: level you are in this league, has something to grow
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and get better at. as a player, and I think
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the team has done a great job of handling all
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: of that.
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: As a player, how do you handle the game planning
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: perspective here when you played these guys in February, but
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: obviously they have some changes in personnel? How do you
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: handle that compared to, say, the coaching staff where Mike
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: says it's a fluid situation? What's it like for you
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: going into a season opener against the last team you
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: played against?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like it was so long ago
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: that we obviously have to restudy. They still have some tendencies,
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  Speaker 1: as all teams do, but they obviously brought in a
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: lot of new receivers, a lot of new players. Overall,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: we just have to relearn this team and take it
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: day by day all over again. We obviously played them last,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: but I feel like that was so long ago that
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: we've got to start all over again.
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: For you, Leo, personally, what was your process like of
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  Speaker 5: turning the page from, I imagine when you win a
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: Super Bowl, you want to celebrate it and enjoy it
• 2:17
  Speaker 5: for a time, but what was the process like of
• 2:19
  Speaker 5: putting it behind you?
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think like you said, it's like there's
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: definitely time to process that we won and celebrate it.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, having the parade through the city and celebrating
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: with all the 12s was probably one of the most
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: special moments of my career, of my life. Shortly after that,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I had my son Zion, so I quickly forgot about
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the Super Bowl, to be honest. He was like my
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: new biggest thing. And then, you know, to start this season,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: like I said, I've just been impressed with Myself, the team,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the coaching staff, everybody in the building of how we've
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: handled success. Coming off of a successful year, we're not
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: trying to chase a previous team that we once were.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Even though that was just a year ago or months ago,
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  Speaker 1: we understand that it's a whole new season, a whole
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: new team, and we have to find a new identity.
• 3:04
  Speaker 6: With the Ronnie Lott and Leonard Williams genetics, have you
• 3:08
  Speaker 6: gotten any NIL offers.
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: For them yet?
• 3:10
  Speaker 6: No.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: No NIL offers yet, but a lot of people are
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: talking about him. Some of my coaching staff, even when
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: they heard his full name, they're all calling him football
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: royalty and stuff like that. So I'm definitely going to
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: try to convince him to go to USC at some point,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to let him go wherever he wants.
• 3:28
  Speaker 6: You've obviously been doing this a while now.
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: Do you still feel like the same excitement and things
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: like that when a new season comes around?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's the best part about,
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  Speaker 1: you know, where I'm at in my career in life
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  Speaker 1: right now is, you know, I'm going into year 12
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: and I still feel, you know, the butterflies before the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: game starts. During the national anthem, I'm still getting jittery
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: and all that excitement. And, you know, even coming into
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: the building today, you see like guys like Law, J. Reed,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: like guys who have been in this game for a
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: long time, like coming into the building with like just
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: a brightness about them. uh, everybody talking about how they
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: feel good after the little break that we just had
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: after camp. And, uh, I think everyone knows that we're just,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: you know, we're in a good place coming off of
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: a good camp to, uh, start the season.
• 4:06
  Speaker 6: You guys were really looking forward to the first game
• 4:08
  Speaker 6: last year and the game against 49ers and it didn't
• 4:11
  Speaker 6: go exactly as you wanted. A lot of frustrated guys
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  Speaker 6: after that game. How do you guys like make sure
• 4:17
  Speaker 6: you get off on the right foot this year?
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Honestly, we lost that game, but I think, um, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it was meant to be, um, the way we started
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  Speaker 1: last season. Um, I think that lit a fire in
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  Speaker 1: the guys. It showed where we were as a team and, um,
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  Speaker 1: you know, it allowed us to grow and, and not
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  Speaker 1: want that feeling, uh, to happen in the locker room again. And, um,
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  Speaker 1: you know, from then on, I think we had a
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  Speaker 1: great season. So I think regardless of, you know, win
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: or loss in the first game, um, I think it's
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  Speaker 1: all about just us preparing as a team and us
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  Speaker 1: showing up as the way we want to show up. Um,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: you know, in terms of like how we play our
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: style of football and things like that. And, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we'll let the outcome be the outcome. But we obviously
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: all want to win in this league. And that's our
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: goal is to win again this season. But, you know,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: I don't want to take the loss as, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the end of our season because it clearly turned it
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: around for us last year.
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  Speaker 3: How much, Leonard, do you take the challenge of doing
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  Speaker 3: this again and how rare it is to go back
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  Speaker 3: to back and, go all the way, climb.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: The mountain again, starting over. How much of that.
• 5:19
  Speaker 6: Alone is a challenge for guys like you and DeMarcus
• 5:21
  Speaker 6: that have been around the league a while?
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, I would say it's definitely a challenge, you know,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: especially coming off of a Super Bowl. You know, people
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: are going to play us differently. Teams are going to
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: see us as the Super Bowl champions, defending champs, and
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: they're probably going to play harder against us than they
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: would other teams. And, you know, I have a great
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  Speaker 1: example in my father-in-law, Ronnie Lott, who's done it before.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: And he talks about how hard it is and how
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: much we have to forget about the last season and
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: focus on now. And that actually gives me a lot
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: of hope because I see that in the building. Like
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  Speaker 1: I've been saying the whole time I've been up here,
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  Speaker 1: everybody's done a good job of handling that success and
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: just looking forward. Nobody's talking about what we were last year.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: We're all focused on how can we get it done
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  Speaker 1: this year. Did you explicitly talk to him about that?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Did he bring it up to you? Yeah, he brought
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: it up to me just shortly after the Super Bowl.
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  Speaker 1: You know, he realized how many of our guys would
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: like staying on the team. You know, I was talking
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: to him about, you know, D-Law coming back and me
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: coming back and all these other guys that are vets. And,
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  Speaker 1: you know, he talked about how hard it is to repeat. And,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: you know, that was part of what he told me
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  Speaker 1: that's hard about it is, you know, guys look to
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  Speaker 1: that last season that they just had instead of looking forward. And,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we're not doing that around here.
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  Speaker 4: Leo, have you had a chance to talk to any
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  Speaker 4: of the players that were on the 2013 team that
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: won the Super Bowl and then.
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: Came back the next year, and they managed to get
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: back to the.
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  Speaker 2: Big game, obviously.
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  Speaker 4: But have you had a chance to talk to any
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  Speaker 4: of those.
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  Speaker 2: Guys about that?
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, actually, I have a good relationship with Cam Chancellor
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: and Richard Sherman, and they pretty much all told me
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  Speaker 1: the same thing Ronnie told me. So it's clearly different
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: phases of football, different times, but it's all the same thing.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: It's just focusing on what's ahead and not looking back.
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  Speaker 1: Speaking of looking ahead, what do you think is coming
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: this year for Byron? I mean, he's just one of
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  Speaker 1: those players that I've seen steadily grow since he's gotten
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  Speaker 1: this league. He's a quiet, humble kid, and he's just
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  Speaker 1: always looking to grow as a player. You know, he's
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: just super stout and dominant in the run game, and
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  Speaker 1: I think he's just been growing more and more as
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: a pass rusher. It seems like you guys are going
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: to use him three more this year. What should that
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: do to allow him for his pass rushing to come
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: alive a little bit more instead of using the double
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: teams all the time? Yeah, for sure. I think being
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: able to rush at the three technique is going to
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  Speaker 1: open up some opportunities, and just him being in this
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  Speaker 1: system for three years now, just more experience. He's been
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: able to learn from a lot of vets in his
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  Speaker 1: D-line room, and he's a sponge. He takes up a
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  Speaker 1: lot of information, and he's always willing to learn and grow,
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  Speaker 1: so I think he's going to just continue to do that.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: You just mentioned year three in this system. Mike's defense
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: is obviously not the simplest one for guys to come
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: and learn. Where have you seen kind of what that
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: experience has done for you guys. A lot of you
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  Speaker 3: guys in this defense three years.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it allows us to play faster just being
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: under the same system, under the same coach for this long.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: We understand the coach's expectations. We understand expectations from each other,
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  Speaker 1: and we understand where we got to be and the
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: expectations of the defense. And by doing that for, you know,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: long enough with the same group of guys, you start
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  Speaker 1: to learn each other's tendencies and understand what it takes
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  Speaker 1: to get the job done. And I think it just
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: allows us to play faster especially at home. We got to,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: you know, work on different verbal communications, nonverbal communications. And,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: you know, when you're in the system for this long,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: it allows you to do that a lot faster.
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: Have you seen anything different out of Sam Darnold going
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: against him in practice this year from, say, this time
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: last year at all?
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I haven't, and I say that in a good way.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Sam's been the same guy since he's come in the building,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: and he's the type of guy who's just working. He's
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: the first one in, last one out. You know, he's
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: a great leader. Just always watching film. When we're on
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  Speaker 1: the plane and we have time to just mess around,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: goof around, and hang out with each other, he's sitting
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: there studying film and trying to work on his game.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: That's something I love about Sam is you're going to
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: get the same person with him no matter what day
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: it is, no matter if we just came off of
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: a win or a loss. Regardless of what's going on
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: outside of football for him, he's going to show up
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: as the same guy every day.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: What about the offense as a whole? I mean, last
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: year Sam was new a lot. There's a lot more
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: newness last year scheme-wise. Does it feel like the offense
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: has been ahead of what you saw last year in camp?
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely the way they attack the ball. They get
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: lined up fast. They have a lot of motions. They
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: move the tight ends and fullbacks and stuff like that
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: a lot. It makes it hard on our defense. So
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of good competition throughout camp, and
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how they can continue
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: to grow.
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: Every contender needs a deep defensive line.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: What are you anticipating from Riley Mills this year?
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I expect Riley to step up a lot this year.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: He had a great Super Bowl game, which was his
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: first game back, but even before that game, he was
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: injured all season, so you can see a different hunger
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: in driving him. You can tell that he was down
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of the time last year, and he's just
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: ready to do whatever it takes to be out there
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: on the field with us.
• 10:20
  Speaker 6: A lot of defensive head coaches in the NFL have
• 10:24
  Speaker 6: played the game. What about Mike has allowed him to
• 10:28
  Speaker 6: be a guy that did not play at the highest
• 10:30
  Speaker 6: level and still is a defensive head coach?
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: What was the question?
• 10:35
  Speaker 6: So a lot of the defensive head coaches out there,
• 10:37
  Speaker 6: like D'Amico Ryans, are guys that played defense in the NFL.
• 10:40
  Speaker 6: Mike's not one of those guys. What allows him to
• 10:43
  Speaker 6: command respect and lead you guys from a defensive side,
• 10:45
  Speaker 6: even though he did not play the game?
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: I think it's just his work ethic, his determination, the
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: way he chases edges. I've talked about this before. He
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: preaches chasing edges, and we see that in him. He's
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: always trying to find ways to exploit an offense, put
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: us in the right position, allow us to play fast
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: and free. He's definitely got the respect of everybody in
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: the building, especially on the defensive side. He came in,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and we all just knew that he understands how to
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: call defenses, and he understands how to exploit offenses. So
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I think it doesn't really matter if you played the
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: game or not. If you're good at doing that consistently
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: and always finding new ways and chasing edges, then you're
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: going to get the respect from the guys in the building.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Anything else?
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: No, sir.
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: Thank you.