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Leonard Williams On Improving The Pass Rush, Preparing For Aaron Rodgers & The Steelers · Seahawks Press Pass

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, when you book it going up against a guy
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: like Aaron Rodgers, is it tempting to change anything you
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: do to try to throw am off this game or
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  Speaker 1: is it more of the just doing exactly what it
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  Speaker 1: is and try to beat.
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  Speaker 2: Him with their strength.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's just doing exactly what we do. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: I think it's harder to go against scrambling quarterbacks. I
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  Speaker 3: think in those moments, you try to change the way
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  Speaker 3: you pass rush, You try to change the way you
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  Speaker 3: have like gap integrity and the pass rush and stuff
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  Speaker 3: like that. I think Aaron, you know, he still has
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  Speaker 3: an arm, he could still make all the throws in
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  Speaker 3: the world, but when it comes to making players on
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  Speaker 3: his feet, I just think he's not the same as
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  Speaker 3: he was when he was younger. So I think it's
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  Speaker 3: just for us to just getting get into the spot,
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  Speaker 3: getting in his face, getting hits on him as much
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  Speaker 3: as possible, and just wearing them down.
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  Speaker 4: You're wropping into coverageer all this week after Sharon.
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  Speaker 3: Rogers, I'm not sure. He definitely made a funny comment
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  Speaker 3: after that interception last year and he said Merry Christmas.
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  Speaker 3: I'm gonna see if he remembers.
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  Speaker 2: That is that during the game.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was during the game. I think it was
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  Speaker 3: like going I think I'm not I can't remember if
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  Speaker 3: if that was before the half, that interception. I'm pretty
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  Speaker 3: sure it was. Yeah, it was like going into the
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  Speaker 3: locker room at halftime. He he said that.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, he's known for his snap counts and getting free
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  Speaker 4: plays for outsides. You know, obviously getting off the snaps
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  Speaker 4: a pretty big deal for you guys as well. How
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  Speaker 4: do you balance those two things.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, it's definitely something we're gonna have to be
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  Speaker 3: locked in as the front. You know, he's a very
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  Speaker 3: smart quarterback. He could read defenses very well, So we're
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  Speaker 3: gonna have to be good in our disguise in the
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  Speaker 3: back end as well. And you know, the offense just
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  Speaker 3: goes through him. There's gonna be times where he's gonna
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  Speaker 3: be you know, changing the plays audible in a lot
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  Speaker 3: and hard counting a lot. And he's just one of
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  Speaker 3: the he's the head of the snake, you know what
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  Speaker 3: I mean. So it's like, if we affect him, we
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  Speaker 3: affect our offense in what plays?
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  Speaker 1: Is this defense more equipped to disguise and the high
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  Speaker 1: that hide some of those looks this year compared to last.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I think we've had period and every single
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  Speaker 3: practice through OTAs, through camp through you know, leading up
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  Speaker 3: until now, we've had like a blitz bluff bandit period,
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  Speaker 3: one of Mike's favorite periods because, uh, you know, we
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  Speaker 3: we watch on film after that practice and we we
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  Speaker 3: all make guesses in the defensive room whether we're going
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  Speaker 3: to pressure or not. And uh, that's you know, showing
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  Speaker 3: everybody if they're doing a good enough job of disguising
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  Speaker 3: or not.
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  Speaker 4: DK is already given a talk back there and just said,
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  Speaker 4: it's just another game and all that as a guy
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  Speaker 4: who's kind of gone through this being traded playing your
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  Speaker 4: ohole team, is it? Is it just another game or
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  Speaker 4: does that all played with?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean, I think you want to treat every
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  Speaker 3: game the same. I think it's bad if you're too
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  Speaker 3: high for a game, if you're too low for a game.
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  Speaker 3: You always want to be kind of right in the middle.
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  Speaker 3: It's kind of what Mike talks about all the time
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  Speaker 3: with a loosen, focused type of energy. You never want
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  Speaker 3: to be too low, too loose, or too focused. If
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  Speaker 3: you make the game bigger than what it is, sometimes
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  Speaker 3: you play out of your game and sometimes not have
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  Speaker 3: a good game, So I think it's definitely most important
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: to just treat it the same.
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  Speaker 4: How was he as a teammate in the locker room.
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  Speaker 3: D I mean I thought it was a great teammate.
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  Speaker 3: I was only here with him for about a year
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  Speaker 3: and a half, but in my time with him, I
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  Speaker 3: love being around him. I love offensive guys who get
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  Speaker 3: along with defensive guys. I think that's just rare, Like
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  Speaker 3: a lot of times you see like offensive guys kind
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  Speaker 3: of hang out with each other and defensive guys hang
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  Speaker 3: out with each other. And we always said that he
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: was welcome to the dark side.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: You mentioned you mentioned after the game kind of the
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  Speaker 1: physicality you guys played with. How important is that for
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  Speaker 1: you guys to come out of games feeling like you
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  Speaker 1: sort of post your roll team and win or lose,
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  Speaker 1: just that they fail you.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I said that after the game, and
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  Speaker 3: I still feel that way now after watching film that
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  Speaker 3: we played a physical game and that's something that you
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  Speaker 3: know our team is going to take pride on throughout
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  Speaker 3: the season. Is you know, making them hurting, making them
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  Speaker 3: know that they they played us, and uh, you know
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  Speaker 3: we're feeling it too. But it's something that you know,
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  Speaker 3: we're accustomed to because that's the way we practice, that's
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  Speaker 3: the way we play every day.
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  Speaker 4: You look back at that game and you look ahead
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  Speaker 4: to this week, What's what's the thing that you feel
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  Speaker 4: like has to be different to come out with a victory.
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  Speaker 3: I think, you know, like we just hit on being physical,
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  Speaker 3: being aggressive, playing our style of football. That really showed
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  Speaker 3: up on film. There was no nobody blinked twice, nobody
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  Speaker 3: back down even after long drives on defense, and when
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  Speaker 3: they were in the residme, we were able to get stops.
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  Speaker 3: But with all that said, I think there was some
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  Speaker 3: execution details and things like that that we can clean
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  Speaker 3: up on. I feel like the intention was there, the
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  Speaker 3: energy and the passion and like the want two and
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  Speaker 3: all that type of stuff was there. We played very
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  Speaker 3: aggressive football, but I think there's a fine line of
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  Speaker 3: playing that aggressive but also executing at a high level.
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  Speaker 4: I've said that he felt like the pass rush wasn't
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  Speaker 4: quite where you guys want it to be. What was
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  Speaker 4: your feeling about where the past rush was.
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  Speaker 3: I agree. We looked at it as a front and
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  Speaker 3: you know, the only sack we got was on a
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  Speaker 3: pressure from Julian Love we're a powerful front that you know,
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  Speaker 3: we want to make all the sacks, we want to
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  Speaker 3: get all the pressures and all those type of things.
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  Speaker 3: We have goals in our room. But you know from
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  Speaker 3: watching they did a good enough job. They did a
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  Speaker 3: good job like disguise and when they were going to pass,
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  Speaker 3: play action in and chipping and double teaming and things
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  Speaker 3: like that, and it's a credit to you know, the
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  Speaker 3: guys that we have in the room. But at the
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  Speaker 3: same time, we know that we're going to receive that
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  Speaker 3: from offenses, so we have to figure out ways to
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  Speaker 3: pass rush on first and second down and learn how
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  Speaker 3: to beat chip blocks in double teams.
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  Speaker 5: With Rogers in his hard count, what do you think
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  Speaker 5: it is that makes it so effective? I mean, it
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  Speaker 5: seems like that's the one thing that one of the
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  Speaker 5: things that always gets talked about with him and way
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  Speaker 5: more so than other quarterbacks.
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  Speaker 3: What do you think separates him from and I think
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  Speaker 3: it's just the multiples of him. It's you get like
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  Speaker 3: three or four different hard counts throughout a game, and
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  Speaker 3: he's not just hitting you with it once or twice
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  Speaker 3: a game. It's the whole drive. You're going to get
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  Speaker 3: a few different hard counts. I think that what makes
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  Speaker 3: it so hard.
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  Speaker 5: Has he ever got you?
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  Speaker 3: I'm not.
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  Speaker 5: I can't remember you simulate that in practice.
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  Speaker 3: I mean you could try to, But you know, he
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  Speaker 3: just has a feeling for it. I think, you know,
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  Speaker 3: he's been doing it for so long. He has a
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  Speaker 3: good like. I don't even I don't know how to
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  Speaker 3: describe it. It's just pretty. He's pretty good at it.
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  Speaker 2: His play action game is Is that less of an
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  Speaker 2: issue for you because your key is the tackle over
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  Speaker 2: the guy over you and how he's setting, or are
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  Speaker 2: you still prone to like a good play action thing.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, like I just said, it's like our front
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  Speaker 3: didn't do a good enough job of getting to the quarterback.
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  Speaker 3: So play action is one of those things that we're
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  Speaker 3: gonna have to get better at as Russian as the front.
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  Speaker 3: So you know, we see that they like to play
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  Speaker 3: action a lot. They have a lot of big personnel
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  Speaker 3: up on the line, so you know, it sometimes looks
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  Speaker 3: like run and then it turns the past. I think
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  Speaker 3: we're gonna have to do a good job converting on
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  Speaker 3: those situations.
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  Speaker 5: Was there anything there or you could have done on
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  Speaker 5: the penalty you received?
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  Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I probably could have just moved to
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  Speaker 3: the side a little bit. But it's tough because I'm
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  Speaker 3: playing full speed. I play a certain level of aggression
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  Speaker 3: and I don't think I'm a dirty player at all,
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  Speaker 3: but you know, when you're playing on that line, there's
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  Speaker 3: sometimes calls are not going to go your way.
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  Speaker 5: I think it's only one year and then you know,
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  Speaker 5: just the one game.
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  Speaker 3: But you guys are much.
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  Speaker 5: Better on the road, your record is anyway than at
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  Speaker 5: Why do you think that is?
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  Speaker 3: I'm not sure. There's definitely something that we've been trying
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  Speaker 3: to figure out. Definitely something that you know, we owe
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  Speaker 3: it to our fans, we owe it to our stadium.
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  Speaker 3: I'm definitely tired of seeing other fans and jerseys and
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: stuff like that in the stadium. But you know, we
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: can't blame the stadium or the fans for that. It's
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  Speaker 3: like we have to take accountability and we haven't been
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  Speaker 3: doing a good enough job of winning at home, so
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  Speaker 3: we're trying to figure it out.
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  Speaker 2: On the other side.
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  Speaker 5: Why do you think you guys, I mean, there's challenges
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  Speaker 5: going east, especially with the early game.
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  Speaker 1: You've been here a couple of years now, what do
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  Speaker 1: you think like allows.
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  Speaker 3: You succeed I mean, the only thing I can think is, like,
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  Speaker 3: possibly because we're in enemy territory, because we're traveling, because
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  Speaker 3: we have all these things going against us, sometimes we
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  Speaker 3: have no choice but to like come together and just
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  Speaker 3: know that, like it's us against the world type of feeling.
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  Speaker 3: And I think in those moments it just makes us
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  Speaker 3: play together as a team.
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  Speaker 5: Having played on the East Coast to start for most
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  Speaker 5: of your care and then playing here, do you know
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  Speaker 5: it the difference of going east to west versus west easter.
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  Speaker 3: For me, it's a lot harder going west to east,
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  Speaker 3: for sure. When you're traveling east to west, you still
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  Speaker 3: leave the day before because you're gaining time. You get
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: back really late though, so the recovery after is kind
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  Speaker 3: of suck. But you know, once I started playing for Seahawks,
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  Speaker 3: that was my first time ever learning that teams will
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: travel two days before and it's tough because you don't
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: get a us to the to the time change and
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: things like that. But uh, I mean we've been making
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  Speaker 3: it work. Anything else.
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  Speaker 4: Thank you, sir, than Thank you m m hm