Of all the news around the Seattle Seahawks this offseason in through training camp, no news has filled me with more joy than the news that broke yesterday of the team reaching a 3 year $90 million extension with defensive tackle Leonard Williams. With all respects to JSN, and Devon Witherspoon reaching their extensions, Big Cat Williams, for my money, is the one Seattle Seahawk I have felt all along that the team could most ill afford to lose in free agency.

In fact, if we are to take away the importance of the quarterback position, I would argue that no position in football is more impactful for a team than a defensive lineman who can both be an impactful pass rusher, and run defender. For example, if Seattle were to have reached negotiation stalemates with either Jaxon Smith Njigba or Witherspoon and decided to move on, it would surely set panic amongst the fanbase, but there does exist a reality that receiver and cornerback are fairly easy to replace positions in the college draft. Drafting and developing quarterbacks is significantly harder, and I think finding top end defensive tackles through the draft is, as well.

For all the fanfare that JSN rightly has, and Witherspoon has, and hybrid defender Nick Emmawori will surely have, football, real American football, to it’s core, is a game won and lost inside the trenches. I know that I sound like a cliche narrator off of an old NFL Films piece shot in the 1980’s by stating this, but it is a truth that simply cannot be denied. For anyone who would push back against this fundamental truth, I can simply point to this team in Seattle who, last season, stole glory away from the hyped up LA Rams, and beat the crap out of the Patriots in Super Bowl LX.

While dipsticks these days like Fox Sports host Jason McIntyre get caught up in dumb arguments about whether or not Sam Darnold is a top ten quarterback this year (he is), and fantasy football enthusiasts geek out over receivers and all purpose running backs, the teams that can consistently win the battles inside the gaps between guard and center, and guard and tackle will be in the strongest positions to win a title almost always. The Seahawks proved that last year, the Eagles did, as well, the year before, and the year before that, so did the Chiefs.

Looking at the Seattle defense in particular, the uniqueness of their domination completely starts up front. In a nutshell, Seattle’s Dark Side D is basically a 4-2-5 defense that operates with two safeties who will work deep, and a 6-3 220 athletic freak who works the slot as a defensive back in a linebacker’s body. This look essentially invites offenses to run the ball. From a football 101 standpoint, if you only count seven defenders in the box up front, you should want to run against that, and against Seattle’s defense last year, offenses tried and failed something quite miserably at it.

Seattle’s starting defensive tackle tandem of Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy Junior proved too dominant in their unique strength, and athleticism, and skill to run against. The depth of players such as Jarran Reed, Brandon Pili, and much later on in the Super Bowl, Rylie Mills made it very difficult, as well. If you can have a defense where the defensive tackle rotation is so strong that you can play most games out of nickel and offenses cannot get the run game going, that is a MASSIVE advantage for your team.

The Seattle Seahawks are built to win games because they are built to win the A and B gaps inside. I believe this is a very intentional vision under head coach Mike Macdonald. Just look at the first two drafts under his leadership. 2024, DT Byron Murphy was the first pick, and guard Christian Haynes was the second. In 2025, guard Grey Zabel was the first pick, and hybrid safety/linebacker Nick Emmanwori was the second.

Shoot, even this year in 2026, they took a running back in round one, and another safety in round two. It remains to be seen how impactful Jadarian Price and eventually Bud Clark will be, but all of these picks, in one way, or another exemplifies an emphasis on building strength up the middle offensively and defensively.

By locking up Big Cat Williams for the next four seasons, it shows a high importance commitment from Seattle to dominate inside. This signing shouldn’t impact their ability to extend Byron Murphy to a very similar contract in a year, either. With the fifth year option being available to use on Murphy’s first round rookie contract, his extension dollars wouldn’t kick in until year three of Big Cat’s deal, and I believe this is all very mapped out by the front office.

The Eagles have placed a heavy commitment on having two high priced defensive tackles along with a high priced quarterback, and it feels like Seattle is poised to do very much the same with a likely Darnold extension looming next offseason. This is as good of a way as any, in my view, of sustaining a proper contending team.

I will state again that it is really difficult to draft and develop proper NFL quarterbacks, and do everything defensive linemen. When you have veteran players that fit these molds on your roster, you tend to want to hang onto them, so yes, I am projecting that Darnold will be most likely the next big extension to happen for this team down the line, and probably we see that Murphy extension happening around the same time, as well, in 2027.

In the meantime, Seattle will soon enough have real games to play again. From my vantage, I think it is perfectly fine for folks to have questions about this team regards to whether they have enough at running back, edge rush, and maybe in the secondary. While I think there is every chance we could see a productive rookie year out of Jadarian Price, the proof will have to be in the pudding. In terms of the edge rush group, and DBs, I am going to really trust Macdonald on this one.

After tonight’s game, I could see a front office move or two to shore up these areas a bit more on defense, or even at running back. I could also see Seattle being perfectly comfortable rolling with what they have.

Last year, at this time, I was not super comfortable with what Seattle had at middle linebacker behind Ernest Jones, and I did not see Drake Thomas emerging to have the year he had last year. Now, I see Thomas as one of the team’s best defenders. I also didn’t see safety Ty Okada’s play coming, and today, I feel very comfortable with him as a replacement for Coby Bryant. Perhaps behind Price, and eventually Zach Charbonnet coming back, they really do like Jacardia Wright quite a bit.

All I know is that with the commitment to Big Cat, the Seahawks are showing us how they intend to continue winning. They want to continue owning the trench battles inside.

I have no problem seeing them give a 32 year old man a big extension like this, either. Big Cat, who ESPN rates as the best defensive tackle presently in the game, feels like a player akin to Calais Campbell, long, and lean, and grown man strong who can play this game at a high level well through his thirties. Best of all, he is so uniquely built and skilled that you can move him anywhere on the defensive line to create mismatches. Like Witherspoon in the secondary, he is Macdonald’s ultimate chess piece player up front. You can put him at nose, three tech, or end, and he will whoop ass.

As we have seen through these episodes of Hard Knocks, he is a pretty special dude off the field, as well, and inside the locker room. He is quintessentially a Mike Macdonald “warrior in the garden” sorta player. He is the very fabric of what the coach wants as a Seattle Seahawk, and he is a massive reason why this team rightly won that Super Bowl last February.

For these reasons, I love this extension. I am super excited about it, in fact.

Go Hawks.