ESPN slams Seattle Seahawks bringing back this player

On the first day of unofficial official free agency, the Seattle Seahawks did not do anything in terms of going out and signing another team's free agent. Instead, Seattle chose to stay in-house and brought back tight end Noah Fant and defensive lineman Leonard Williams. Seattle needed to bring back Williams, while the re-signing of Fant was a little more of a surprise.

In a good way, too. Fant could have his best year yet under new Seahawks offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb. Grubb has shown he will use whatever tools are given him and put them in situations to succeed. Fant has been ill-used his whole career, beginning with the Denver Broncos and then being lost in Seattle's former OC's, Shane Waldron, system.

Williams was a player Seattle had to bring back, though. He cost the team a second-round choice when Seattle traded for him midway through this past season. In essence, Williams is the most expensive second-round pick Seattle will ever have in their year two with the team. But Williams, especially in comparison to almost all the rest of Seattle's defense, was very good in the second half of the season.

ESPN gets grade for Seattle Seahawks re-signing Leonard Williams completely wrong

But in ESPN's grades for each reported signing, the website did not like Seattle bringing Williams back. ESPN gave Seattle a C- for the deal. Some of their reasoning was based on sacks, which seems odd. Williams is more of a defensive lineman than an edge rusher. While the article points out the outlier of Williams getting 11.5 sacks in 2020, ESPN seems to diminish what Williams does in terms of affecting quarterbacks.

Every season of his career except 2022, Williams has at least 46 total pressures. In 2023, he had 54. 37 of these were hurries which, of course, means a quarterback is being forced to throw a pass before they want to. ESPN also points out that Williams' pass-rush win rate was only slightly better than the league average, but they seem to miss the point that Williams was better than most of the rest of the league.

Also, both Williams' pass-rush win rate and his run-stop win rate were higher once he joined the Seahawks. His overall play is likely to continue to be higher than most of the league with Mike Macdonald now coaching the team. Macdonald will better use Williams than he was with the New York Giants and better than he was under former Seahawks defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt.

Maybe the defensive lineman getting paid $64 million for three years is a lot. He will be 30 years old next season. But that is also the going rate for a player of his skill set. General manager John Schneider needed to get a deal worked out with Williams and he did. That is a win for the Seahawks.

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