Williams sent to Seahawks for 2024 2nd-round pick, 2025 5th-round selection
The Giants’ disaster season and ongoing rebuild is sending the Big Cat out West.
Joe Schoen is trading pass rusher Leonard Williams to the Seattle Seahawks, according to a source, in exchange for a 2024 second-round pick and 2025 fifth-round pick.
The Giants are eating most of Williams’ remaining $10 million salary to facilitate the deal. This is an excellent return for a player in the final year of a bulky contract.
The trade demonstrates that Schoen and the Giants (2-6) know what they are, although shipping out an established veteran and defensive captain doesn’t send a great message to this year’s locker room.
This could be the start of a fire sale in East Rutherford, N.J., with corner Adoree Jackson, receiver Parris Campbell and safety Xavier Mckinney all names to watch.
Saquon Barkley would bring good return in a trade too, but Brian Daboll said the Giants are definitely not dealing him.
Williams, 29, meanwhile, gets to reunite with former teammates Julian Love (Giants), Jamal Adams (Jets) and Geno Smith (Jets) on the NFC West’s first-place team. It will be the first time he has played outside of New York since college at USC.
The Big Cat, a former Jets first-round pick, played in 61 games across 4 ½ seasons for the Giants after a 2019 midseason trade between the crosstown rivals.
Former general manager Dave Gettleman sent a third-round and fifthround pick to the Jets to acquire Williams in the middle of a lost season when the Giants had no cause to be buyers. Then Gettleman re-signed Williams to an enormous three-year, $63 million contract extension in March 2021.
That’s the root of Williams carrying the largest salary-cap hit on the Giants’ team this season at $32.2 million.
In all, Williams was durable though not dominant, and he played for three head coaches in his five years with the franchise. He endured a lot of losing and finally reached the playoffs for the first time in his NFL career last season in Schoen’s and Daboll’s first year.
The Giants’ 2023 season has been dismal despite a lot of strong defensive performances because of a pathetic offense and poor roster construction. So it was incumbent upon Schoen to secure more assets for the future.
And that made his pass rusher his most attractive trade chip and the most likely to be dealt first.