Why Seahawks gave Giants a 2nd-rounder: Money + the hope to re-sign Leonard Williams
Pete Carroll and the Seahawks don’t see what others may see in Leonard Williams.
They don’t intend for the 29-year-old, one-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle with an expiring contract they acquired in a trade with the New York Giants Monday to be a half-season “rental,” a player for a playoff push only this year.
“We thought this was one of those situations where we get a rare player, who’s young enough — and hopefully we have a chance to get him back again (for next season),” Carroll said Monday afternoon.
“Could be a big factor.”
Seattle made the deal to bolster their defensive line, pass rush and run defense now — and, the team hopes, beyond — in exchange for the steep price of a second-round pick in next year’s NFL draft. The Seahawks also gave the Giants a fifth-round pick in 2025.
The trade thickens the Seahawks’ thinnest spot, interior defensive line, which the team did not do in this spring’s draft. Tackle Jarran Reed has played more than 70% of snaps four times in seven games, including in the last three. The 30-year-old Reed played 58 of 78 snaps (74%) Sunday and had four tackles in Seattle’s comeback win over the Browns. End Dre’mont Jones, at a position Williams also plays, has been on the field for 64% of Seattle’s defensive snaps this season.
In the last two games, Arizona has rushed for 127 yards and Cleveland for 155 against Seattle’s previously strong run defense. The Seahawks (5-2) will get further tested on their defensive front Sunday when they play at the AFC North-leading Baltimore Ravens (6-2), and by the San Francisco 49ers when they meet twice in Seattle’s bid to winning the NFC West.
The Seahawks lead the division by a half game over the reeling 49ers (5-3).
“Everyone will play,” Carroll said of adding Williams to the defensive-line rotation.
How the trade got done
The fact the Seahawks have an extra third-round pick next year, the result of a trade with Denver tied to the fortunes of New Orleans this year,” was “a factor for us ... a positive part of this” that spurred Carroll and general manager John Schneider to make the trade for Williams.
What got the deal done was the Giants agreeing to pay all of the remaining base salary due Williams for this season, more than $9 million of the $18 million in his base pay for 2023. The Seahawks agreed to send New York the second-round pick to save that money.
If Seattle had been willing to pay some or most of that $9 million due to Williams for this season, the Seahawks would have only offered a pick in the third round or later next year. Then they would have been in competition with other NFL teams inquiring about Williams before the league’s trade deadline Tuesday. The Giants reportedly had talks with multiple teams besides Seattle about trading Williams.
The Seahawks with Schneider had been talking with New York for weeks on the deal.
Per league rules, the Seahawks have to pay Williams something to play for them this season, beginning Sunday at Baltimore. That is the veteran minimum salary for a player of his nine years experience. The proration for the remaining 10 games (NFL players are paid weekly over 18 weeks of the regular season, including the bye week) for Williams is $647,222.
The Giants have to take on the salary-cap acceleration charge of more than $5.5 million, a dead-cap charge for 2024, because they gave him the signing bonus on his existing contract.
Plus, Seattle could get as high as a third-round selection next year back as a compensatory pick if Williams signs as a big-bucks free agent with another team in March. That is, if the Seahawks don’t sign more free agents themselves and have a net loss of unrestricted free agents in the league’s formula for compensatory draft picks.
So at that low price with an extra third-round pick to buffer losing a second-rounder next year — and what Carroll feels will be Williams loving the Seahawks’ environment and going from a last-place team to a first-place one enough to want to re-sign for next year — Carroll and Schneider saw the trade worth making.
“It reminds us that we don’t have this option very often, to get a player that is that obviously at the head of his class, we’d like to take a shot at it when we can,” Carroll said.
“We’re competin’.”
Leonard Williams playing multiple roles
When his Seahawks played Williams and the Giants in the New Jersey Meadowlands in early October, Carroll said Williams was one of the best interior defensive linemen Seattle will face this season.
While Carroll called Williams “a classic three-technique” defensive tackle (in the offensive guard-tackle gap), Williams also has played over the center, over the guard and, early in his NFL career with the Jets from 2015-19, defensive end. He was the Jets’ sixth-overall pick in the 2015 draft out of USC. He played three technique on both the left and right sides for the Giants this season.
Reed has been playing up and down the line as a similarly versatile tackle on the interior of the Seahawks’ defensive line. But with only rookie Cameron Young and former practice-squad player Myles Adams as backup interior linemen, Reed and Jones need proven help.
Williams is that.
He is halfway through the final season of the three-year, $63 million deal the Giants gave him before the 2021 season. He got that months after he ended an 11 1/2-sack season for the Giants in 2020. New York is 2-6 and in last place in the NFC East, so it is thinking toward rebuilding for the future and not paying another mammoth contract to a veteran lineman who has the team’s highest salary-cap charge this year and will turn 30 next year.
Asked what he likes about Williams, Carroll said, “Oh, man, everything. Everything.
“We’ve watched for a long time, have known him, Trojan and all that. He’s a fantastic football player. He’s the kind of guy who can make a difference in games.”
Carroll said he talked to Seahawks safeties Jamal Adams and Julian Love, both of whom played with Williams on the Jets and Giants, respectively, plus Seahawks outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu, Williams’ teammate at USC. All raved about Williams as a person, and locker-room presence.
“He’s a terrific kid, a leader, a competitor,” Carroll said. “Just the kind of guy you are fortunate to have on your team.”
This story was originally published October 30, 2023 at 4:21 PM.
