Brandon Pili having Josh Jobe’s back shows Seahawks’ special sauce: brotherhood
This closeness, this brotherhood, the Seahawks keep talking about as the key to their success comes in many forms.
Defensive backs pranking with offensive linemen in the locker room. Guys from other, mixed positions going to each other’s houses.
And: a Pro Bowl veteran who’s earned $160 million in his 12 NFL seasons offering to pay the fine of a third-year pro off the practice squad who’s earned $2 million. That, after the practice-squad call-up jumped an opposing blocker for hitting a Seahawks cornerback at the end of a play in Seattle’s latest win.
“I think that’s the beauty of this team. We’re going to have each other’s back in a lot of situations,” Leonard Williams said.
“We’re going to fight for each other if we have to.”
Williams is that Pro Bowl veteran defensive end who this week publicly offered to pay the fine the third-year practice-squad call-up, Brandon Pili, may be getting from the league this week.
In the fourth quarter of Seattle’s 26-0 rout of Minnesota last weekend, Vikings running back Jordan Mason was going down while being tackled by Seahawks cornerbacks Josh Jobe and Devon Witherspoon on 17-yard run up the middle of the field. Minnesota guard Blake Brandel ran through the end of the play from behind. He lowered his helmet and drove his facemask into the standing Jobe’s head and facemask.
Pili, arriving behind Brandel, was incensed. He delivered a punch at Brandel with his right hand. It resulted in Pili’s right arm smacking the side of Brandel’s head, pushing it back.
“It kind of just a combination of him during the game, and then I just saw him straight head butt Jobe,” Pili said Thursday. “So I just saw red at that moment.”
Pili is one of 10 — ten! — children of Billy and Heather Pili born in Anchorage, Alaska. He’s the son of Samoan and Inupiaq parents. At 26, big (6 feet 3, 334 pounds) brother Brandon is the oldest child. The youngest, his little sister, is 4.
“I’ve got a lot of siblings,” Pili said.
“Yeah, my brotherly instinct took over.”
Officials threw a penalty flag for the extracurriculars on the play. Pili thought it was on him. But it was on Brandel. He got a 15-yard penalty for hitting Jobe.
Jobe had to leave the game to get checked for a possible concussion. Tests proved he did not have one.
When Pili left the game at the end of that series, he got a hero’s reception.
“I got a bunch of high-fives on the sideline,” he said.
“I kind of regret it — a little bit,” Pili said, unconvincingly.
“But you know, looking back on it, I’m glad I had my brother’s back, honestly.”
He — and Williams — know Pili could get fined by the league for throwing a punch, though it didn’t land as intended. “Hopefully, they don’t fine me,” Pili said.
Seahawks’ ‘M.O.B.’ ties
Pili has played in 22 career games over three NFL seasons, 10 for Seattle and 12 over his first two years with the Miami Dolphins, out of USC. He’s yet to be fined by the league.
If the NFL does fine Pili Friday or Saturday, when the league typically fines players for acts from the previous game, it could be for up to $15,000.
He’s got his Pro Bowl veteran lineman backing him.
“Honestly, I might help him pay it,” Williams said.
“To have your teammates back like that, it’s just what I just talked about with connection,” Williams said. I know it’s not a clean play per se, but Josh getting hit on that play wasn’t very clean, either.”
Williams said that while wearing a black T-shirt with gray lettering spelling out “M.O.B. Ties” over a Seahawks logo plus the words “Brotherhood * Truth * Work * Violence.” Someone left the shirt for him in his locker earlier this season. Williams wears it all the time around the team facility.
“M.O.B.” is the team’s locker-room acronym for “Mission Over B.S.” It’s one of many mantras coach Mike Macdonald’s team and especially its top-ranked defense are thriving by while off to a 9-3 start to this season.
“What we just talked about with Pili is pretty much this,” Williams said, looking down at his shirt and laughing.
The “M.O.B.” squad can win Seattle’s first NFC West title by winning the final five games of the regular season. The next one is Sunday against veteran backup quarterback Kirk Cousins and the Falcons (4-8) in Atlanta (10 a.m., FOX television, channel 13 locally). Williams has been on top defenses from Los Angeles (in college at USC) to New York (where he was a top 10-overall draft pick of the Jets before playing for the Giants). He says the Seahawks one he’s on now — second in the NFL in rushing defense, third in points allowed, fourth in sacks — is number one to him.
“It’s the best defense I’ve played on,” Williams said, “and I’ve played on some talented defenses. I’ve played alongside some great D-linemen, as well.
“I think what makes this team and defense so special and unique is just our connection. And I think that’s the driving force of everything.”
Seahawks’ togetherness
Defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence was with Dallas Cowboys for 11 years before signing with Seattle this spring. He made four Pro Bowls with the Cowboys.
Lawrence says this Seahawks unit is the best defense he’s played on.
He says it’s because of more than the talent.
It’s the same reason Pili stuck up for Jobe, and why Williams is ready to pay for it.
“It’s rejuvenating, man. We’ve got a dope brotherhood,” Lawrence said. “We are well-connected in our locker room. We fight for each other. We all love the game.”
This is, of course, by the 38-year-old Macdonald’s design two seasons into running the Seahawks as a first-time head coach at any level.
“We play for each other,” Macdonald said.
He believes this team’s bond solidified this past April, May and June.
Every NFL team every offseason has guys who skip voluntary training, meetings and practices each spring. They miss for various reasons: trusted training on their own, injuries getting rehabilitated elsewhere, weddings, births of children, contract issues, or a status high enough to basically make them exempt until mandatory training camp begins in late July. Nobody really makes a big deal out of that, especially when it’s an established veteran chillin’ out in the offseason.
Even when they were going at their very best, back-to-back Super Bowl best, the Seahawks of 10 years ago had guys who routinely blew off voluntary OTAs. Michael Bennett missed them; he stayed home with his wife and kids in Hawaii. Bruce Irvin skipped. Marshawn Lynch? He wasn’t there. Because he couldn’t get fined, don’t you know?
Yet this offseason these Seahawks, at their relative worst coming off back-to-back non-playoff seasons, had an unheard-of 100% participation in OTAs, meetings and trainings at their facility.
“It’s incred...I mean, it’s so important,” Macdonald said.
“It’s about stacking wins. It’s about being with your teammates, building the connection, building your bodies, building the callus, understanding the details. Incremental gains all the time.
“I found that when you do it with your teammates in this atmosphere, you work the hardest. You get the most out of it. You get the most bang for your buck, and your team becomes better for it.”
Winning helps with the buy-in, of course. The Seahawks have won nine of 11 games. They are aiming for their first division title since 2020.
Pili, the big, oldest brother from Alaska, sees the Seahawks’ brotherhood coming from both the culture within the locker room — and from what Macdonald and general manager John Schneider have instilled in their two seasons constructing and running the team.
“I feel like the guys upstairs (in the team’s front office) did a really good job of getting guys that play our style, play the Seahawks’ style of ball,” Pili said.
“I think it’s a combination, yeah, of the guys we’ve picked out and then Coach Macdonald’s leadership.
“That has a big impression on this team.”
This story was originally published December 5, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
