Leonard Williams Enjoying First Career Postseason Run

Now that New York Giants defensive lineman Leonard Williams has finally tasted playoff football after waiting nine years, he is ready for more.

In his NFL postseason debut last week, Williams and fellow interior defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence controlled the interior line of scrimmage, resulting in the Minnesota Vikings never getting their run game going with Dalvin Cook. This rendered the Vikings one-dimensional and allowed the emphasis to be placed on stopping their passing attack.

The stats might only show that Williams had four tackles, but his impact was felt. He dominated his one-on-one opportunities and forced the Vikings to slide extra defenders to him.

It might have made for a hard night's work, but Williams enjoyed every minute of it.

"It was an amazing experience. The atmosphere in the stadium was incredible. Their fans were super loud," Williams said.

"Everybody had all their family in town and stuff like that. Then not only going into my first playoff game but winning it, it felt incredible. Just seeing everybody’s smiles and coming together and (being) happy for one another. Then quickly moving on to the next team and knowing (that) every team’s goal every season is in arm’s reach of us at this point, it’s super exciting."

It seems not to have taken Williams long to understand how critical every element of the game is in the playoffs. The finality and importance of the top players to play up to their abilities are things he pointed toward as major differences in the game once you reach the postseason.

"The difference is that a mistake is magnified, and you need your best players to play their best in a situation like that. You know it’s all on the line, so everything is at a higher level. Whether you’re making a mistake or making a play, it’s just at a higher level," Williams said.

"I think we did a good job of staying together and playing play after play. If their offense scored on us, we weren’t hanging our heads down. We were ready to go out there for the next play. I think that type of mentality that we had has to keep going in the next few games."

Yes, he said, "next few games." Now that he's had a taste, Williams has no desire to stop at one game. The team had to hear last week about not having playoff experience going into the super wild card weekend.

He believes that their players' overall football experience was enough to carry them but acknowledged that it was a difference. Now the entire team has at least a game under their belt, and Williams believes that it will help going into Philadelphia.

"You hear a lot before that playoff game that not a lot of players on our team had playoff experience. But we talked amongst ourselves, and amongst each other, we’re like, ‘It’s a football game at the end of the day.’ Most of us have been playing football since we were eight years old.

"So, we’ve got to go out there and just treat it like a game. With that being said, it still is a different feeling in the playoffs," Williams said. "Now I feel like we have a little bit of that playoff experience and a win under our belt and just a little more fire and attitude going into this next one."

That next one being against a division rival gives it a little extra sauce, and you can bet that the Philadelphia faithful will be on hand to make life as difficult as possible. It helps that the Giants just endured a hostile crowd in Minnesota. Williams has his own unique way of dealing with the crowd. He does not try to tune them out like other players attempt to do; instead, he uses them like fuel. Similar to what he did in Minnesota.

"When I hear crowd noise, I don’t see it as, ‘That’s the opponent’s crowd.’ I’m just like, ‘It’s a crowd cheering at the end of the day.’ Whether I’m in my own stadium or someone’s stadium, it’s just crowd noise," Williams said.

"I almost channel it and make it mine. When I hear the crowd getting fired up, it fires me up. I don’t really care if they’re rooting for the other color or not. I take it as my own," Williams said. "I love that type of environment. The last game we played in against the Vikings, they just had an incredible environment, and I loved it."

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