Rookie Grey Zabel helping vet Leonard Williams shows Seahawks’ unique bonding
Wanna know the Seahawks’ secret sauce?
Wanna know whey they’ve won 15 of 18 games this season? Why they are in the NFC championship game next weekend? Why they are one win on their home field away from getting back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 2015?
The players say it’s their brotherhood, how uniquely bonded they are.
They say it’s more than an abstract, touchy-feely notion. They feel — they know— their brotherhood wins games.
It did Saturday night in the NFC divisional playoffs. It created the sack that turned the Seahawks’ lead over San Francisco into an annihilation of the 49ers at rockin’ Lumen Field.
Seattle led 24-6 early in the third quarter. The 49ers had made their adjustments on offense. They were moving on the first possession after halftime, into Seahawks territory, trying to make it a game.
Leonard Williams — and Grey Zabel, the stud rookie left guard on the bench at the time — changed that.
On fourth and 2 at the Seattle 44-yard line Williams, the 11th-year veteran Pro Bowl defensive lineman, took a direct line pass rushing 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy. Williams ripped his right, inside arm through Niners guard Dominick Puni. He ran straight into Purdy in the middle of the ruined pocket. The quarterback had no chance on Williams’ 14-yard sack.
Turnover on downs, one of three Seattle had on the night to go with three takeways.
Game over. Seahawks to the NFC title game, for the first time since 2015.
The News Tribune asked Williams following his team’s 41-6 win what made him choose such a direct path on Purdy on that fourth down, as if he knew the elusive quarterback was going to be straight back in the pocket as he was.
“I’ve got to give a shout out to the rookie, Grey Zabel, actually,” Williams said.
“He’s a smart kid. Since (training) camp, since OTAs (spring offseason practices), we’ve been going back and forth communicating. Giving each other tips on what works, what doesn’t work.”
Yes, a 32-year-old, three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle was getting tips from a rookie: from Zabel, the Seahawks’ first-round draft choice who last year at this time was playing for North Dakota State.
“Sometimes it’s good to get insight from a guy on the other side of the ball,” Williams said.
Grey Zabel’s pointer to Leonard Williams
A veteran of 178 games in the league taking — and using — tips from a rookie?
A rookie who in the spring and summer had played in as many NFL games as you and I have?
“He said to me at one point that he can tell I was getting a slide, the center sliding to (block) me a lot,” Williams said. “He was like, ‘Hey, why are you taking the inside move, when the slide is coming to you? You should just try to burn the B-gap.’”
Williams decided to begin the second half, that first Niners possession of it, just doing what Zabel said. Williams was straight-line rushing with an arm rip through the initial block, to keep any 49ers offensive linemen from moving laterally to block him.
“So that whole drive, I was taking off, trying to burn the B-gap.
“And it worked.”
A brotherhood that is more than making guys want to come to work. One that wins games — all the way to the NFC championship and doorstep of the Super Bowl. On the Seahawks bench together after Williams’ turnover sack, fellow Pro Bowl defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence razzed his buddy.
“What?!” Lawrence said, incredulously, over the crowds roars. “A vet learning from a rookie?”
“But that goes back to what Coach Mike [Macdonald] talks about: old-school principles, new-school methods,” Williams said.
“I’m not above myself to (not) take advice from someone. I think that’s how this team is. If someone has some good insight, I think we’re all willing to learn from each other, willing to grow.
“It doesn’t matter what year I am. I’m willing to learn from a young guy. The guy is changing, always adapting. I learned the slogan a long time ago when I was young: Adapt, or die.”
Grey Zabel does it all
Zabel does more than dispense advice to veterans.
He pitched another shutout in pass protection Saturday night: 20 pass-pro plays, zero sacks and zero pressures allowed.
Zabel also ran 40-plus yards from his left-guard spot to the right sideline to be the vanguard for Rashid Shaheed on his teammate’s 30-yard run on an end-around late in the second quarter. That set up the first of Kenneth Walker’s three rushing touchdowns — tying Shaun Alexander’s team record for a playoff game from 2004 — that up Seattle’s lead to 24-6.
Zabel said he was just doing his job, and that he should have done it better, actually.
“It’s another play you’ve gotta go and execute the block,” he said. “When you block for a guy like that, you’ve gotta get out in front of him quite a ways, ‘cause he’s gonna catch you pretty quickly.
“Wish we could’ve gained a little more on that play, and excited for ‘Shid’ to get the success he’s having.”
This story was originally published January 18, 2026 at 3:14 PM.
