'Live in the moment': Leonard Williams, NY Giants' defense embracing NFL playoff push
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — There are three regular season games left in Leonard Williams' eighth NFL season, a career that's essentially been split down the middle with the New York Giants and previously the New York Jets.
He has never made the playoffs, and this is the closest he has been to the postseason since the 2015 season.
Back then, as a 21-year-old rookie with the Jets, Williams experienced the ultimate season-ending heartbreak when Ryan Fitzpatrick was intercepted on the team's final three possessions in Buffalo, coughing up a win-and-in scenario.
Williams has been chasing that feeling every since, so the question for him in the aftermath of Sunday night's rousing 20-12 victory over the Washington Commanders: when the playoffs become so much of an afterthought, can a team become numb to the ramifications of missing out year after year?
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“To be honest with you, [the hunger to win] increases even more when you’ve been losing so much,” Williams said. “It’s almost like, sometimes I feel like you would get more comfortable on a winning team ’cause you’re so used to winning that it’s almost like you feel like it might be the program, or the coaches or whatever the case may be that’s the reason for winning. So you can kinda get a little more comfortable and lax as a player, where it’s like we’ve been losing, we put so much pressure on us to like, ‘We have to do this, we have to do this to get out of this gutter, to get out of this hole, and to be playoff contenders one day.’"
It’s a moment that has eluded the Giants (8-5-1) for six years, and they have a legitimate path to the postseason, beginning with Saturday's Christmas Eve game at the Minnesota Vikings (11-3). They've gone through three different head coaches in that span (Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur and Joe Judge), all of whom were fired in two seasons or, in the case of McAdoo, fewer, and he was actually the one to lead Big Blue to the playoffs in 2016.
The Giants have lost at least 10 games in each of the five seasons that followed their NFC wild card loss at Green Bay. That streak will end when Brian Daboll's first season finishes up.
Williams played four years under Todd Bowles and seven games in 2019 under Adam Gase with the Jets before his trade to the Giants, with whom he played eight games under Shurmur and then two seasons under Judge.
"That’s been crazy: half of my career has been on two different New York teams and haven’t been to the playoffs," Williams said. "I think about that sometimes, winning a championship in New York and picturing a parade in the city and stuff like that. I can’t imagine how that would be. Right now, I’m just trying to live in the moment."
Williams is the veteran presence on a defensive front that is starting to dominate. Rookie Kayvon Thibodeaux earned NFC Defensive Player of the Week honors for his performance against Washington with a career-high 12 tackles, including three for loss. His sack and forced fumble of Taylor Heinicke culminated in a touchdown when Thibodeaux himself recovered the fumble and flipped into the end zone.
Dexter Lawrence, named to his first Pro Bowl, and Azeez Ojulari combined for 10 pressures. In the fourth quarter, Lawrence sacked Heinicke and forced a fumble that Williams recovered. Thibodeaux and Ojulari are forming quite a young tandem on the edge, while Lawrence and Williams are extremely disruptive on their own on the interior.
Together, they can wreck games from the inside.
"If Leo’s not out there, there’s four hands going on Dex all the time," Giants defensive coordinator Wink Martindale said.
The Giants can clinch a playoff berth with a victory over Minnesota and a combination of two losses by Seattle (vs. Kansas City), Washington (at San Francisco) and Detroit (at Carolina).
"Been a long time in the league, coming off double-digit loss years, and this might be my first chance of going to the playoffs, which is pretty crazy," Williams said. "That’s something every player looks forward to as a player, going to the playoffs and having a chance for the championship. Eight years in New York I haven’t really had an opportunity to do that until now, and we’ve got to just make sure we finish the season strong for that."
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NY Giants' Leonard Williams embracing NFL playoff spot push
