“Big Cat” Leonard Williams said after Sunday’s win over the Jets that he thought he deserved NFL Defensive Player of the Week in the Seahawks’ previous game. The league apparently heard him, and so did the rest of the country after he returned an interception 92 yards for a touchdown. Williams and Chargers rookie Tarheeb Still are the respective NFC and AFC Defensive Players of the Week, the NFL announced Wednesday.
Williams also posted two sacks and blocked an extra-point attempt against his former team last week. Since sacks became an official individual statistic in 1982, Williams became the first NFL player with two sacks, a blocked kick and an interception-return touchdown in the same game. Over his last two games, Williams has 4½ sacks, six tackles for loss, two passes defensed and the longest touchdown return by a 300-pound player in league history.
He’s led the charge on Seattle’s three-game winning streak as the Seahawks (7-5) put first place on the line at Arizona (6-6) on Sunday (4:05 p.m. ET, CBS).
Like Williams, Still also returned an interception for a touchdown last week after traveling multiple time zones. In the Chargers’ 17-13 win at Atlanta, the rookie fifth-round draft choice actually picked off two passes, including his 61-yard, go-ahead touchdown. And like Williams, Still and his team have a monster division game this week. Los Angeles (8-4) travels to Kansas City (11-1) for a Sunday Night Football matchup (8:20 p.m. ET, NBC).
Still joined Shawne Merriman (Week 15, 2005) as rookies from Maryland to win a defensive weekly award for the Chargers franchise.
For more information on the Seahawks and Chargers, visit the Seattle and L.A. Chargers team pages at ProFootballPost.com.
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