Giants Think Leonard Williams Can Hit the Ground Running

The Giants' newly acquired defensive lineman will play a prominent role starting Monday night against the Cowboys.

Douglas DeFelice-USA TODAY Sports

The blue of the New York Giants uniform is an unfamiliar color to former Jets player Leonard Williams, acquired this week in a trade by the Giants.

“This is my first time in this color, it still feels a little weird,” Williams said between laughs. “I’m trying to embrace it. It’s been an easy transition since I’m right down the street still. I’m more trying to focus on getting to know my teammates, getting to know the locker room, and showing who I am to this new team.”

Williams will have plenty of time to get used to the new color scheme he’ll be wearing on Sundays. In the meantime, the expectations for the 6-foot-5, 304-pound defensive end was the sixth overall selection in the 2015 NFL Draft are for him to hit the ground running starting Monday night against the Dallas Cowboys.  

“Over the last two years, he’s played in two different schemes with the Jets, and played nose, played three-technique, played five, played on the outside, played over the tight end. So you see the versatility of the player, and he plays hard,” said defensive coordinator James Bettcher. 

“He’s gotten here, and you can see he’s an extremely hard worker. He gets in here at the beginning of the week, and he’s not making mistakes, he’s locked in on what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and he’s working his tail off. So, we’re excited to have him, we’re excited to have an opportunity to work with him.”

The timing of Williams’ arrival couldn’t be better for the Giants defense. As part of the Jets, Williams and his now-former teammates beat the Cowboys back in Week 6, so there is that level of familiarity that the Giants are hoping leads to an advantage.  

“Because I’ve already studied them long enough and played them before, it gives me a little bit of chance to more focus on the Giants and what we have and what I have to learn with this new defense,” Williams said. 

“Opposed to since I have to balance out studying a new team and a new playbook and all that stuff, it helps that I’ve been able to play them already.”

In his eight games with the Jets this season, Williams recorded 20 tackles and zero sacks. In the 2018 season, Williams tallied five sacks, and in 2016, he had seven. 

Bettcher believes that his scheme better places Williams in a position to attack the quarterback. 

“We all want the quarterback hit number, but there’s something to getting a guy off the spot on the inside and making the quarterback lower his vision and have to move left or right,” Bettcher said. 

“Whether that counts as a pressure or a quarterback hit or not, you see him doing that on tape. I’m excited for him to do that with us.”

Williams believes that he will also be able to make a smooth transition because of the similarities in the scheme between Bettcher’s defense and former Jets head coach (and one-time Cardinals defensive coordinator who was Bettcher’s boss) Todd Bowles.

“Even some of the terminology and verbiage is pretty similar, so I think it should be a little bit easier to pick it up, a little bit easier since I’ve played in the defense for a little bit,” Williams said.

“I think it’s a 3-4 system and a 3-4 type system that both of us still run, and I think that does matter in terms of carryover,” Bettcher said. 

“I know there is some language that’s the same that he remembers. But I think, to me, when it’s those kinds of transitions for a player, it’s about the player’s work, and his work has been outstanding.”

Williams joins a group of defensive tackles that includes third-year Dalvin Tomlinson, second-year B.J. Hill, and rookie Dexter Lawrence.

“I think our interior D-linemen are excited to have him with them, too,” Bettcher said. 

“It hasn’t been an environment where he’s come in, and our guys have shied away. I think it’s been just the opposite. I think you see guys, they’re circling around each other and having conversations about whether it’s rush or run fits or those kinds of things.”