Leonard Williams put in extra work not seen since 1930

‘Big Cat’ had a big workload.

When a player switches teams in the middle of a regular season, there are instances where one team has already had its bye week while the other team hasn’t. That was the case for Leonard Williams, who was traded to the Seattle Seahawks from the New York Giants in late October. The Giants didn’t have their bye, while the Seahawks had theirs.

The star defensive lineman played in every Giants game before he was dealt, and didn’t miss any game time with the Seahawks. Hence, we had a rare instance of a player working serious overtime. It’s been 96 years since we’ve last seen an NFL athlete have an 18-game regular season.

Tony Kostos and Cookie Tackwell played for the Frankford Yellow Jackets and Minnesota Red Jackets in the 1930 NFL season. Back then, playoffs didn’t exist, and the Red Jackets folded midseason and sold players to Frankford.

Of course, an 18-game campaign in modern times was made possible by the NFL’s expansion to a 17-game regular season.

The last time any player had an extra game on the rest of the league was wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders, who was traded by the Denver Broncos to the San Francisco 49ers in 2019. Some of you may recall that in Jerry Rice’s final season, he had a 17-game season after starting with the Raiders before getting traded to the Seahawks.

‘Big Cat’ put in one hell of a shift in 2023, and after his impressive performances in a Seahawks uniform, it’s expected that Seattle will look to re-sign him before he enters free agency.