It’s suddenly cool again to be a defensive tackle.
With all the attention paid these days to pass-rushing ends, ball-hawking cornerbacks and hard-hitting safeties, the biggest bodies on a defense sometimes slip through the cracks. Except around the Giants, where the duo of Dexter Lawrence and Leonard Williams is the engine driving success for the NFL’s No. 2-ranked red-zone and third-down defense.
“I’ve never seen a combo of tackles in my career like these two,” defensive coordinator Wink Martindale said. “They take playing in this system very seriously.”
Lawrence, 25, is coming off the best game of his career: Five quarterback hits, two shared sacks to up his career-high season total to five and a forced offensive holding penalty to take a touchdown off the scoreboard. One game earlier, it was the 28-year-old Williams with eight tackles, five quarterback hits and a sack.
“The thing people miss out on is this isn’t just a game,” rookie edge-rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux said of watching his teammates’ work. “This is like art.”
Leonard Williamd, right, embraces Dexter Lawrence. Getty ImagesTheir brotherly friendship started in 2019, when the Giants executed an in-season trade for Williams, who had a welcome message in his social media inbox from the excited rookie Lawrence before the two officially met and became locker-room neighbors. Lawrence followed Williams’ early years with the Jets as far back as high school.
“It was like an automatic click,” Lawrence said. “It was good for me and good for him. We compete against each other. He challenges me every day on and off the field.”
While Lawrence is enjoying a fourth-year breakout to validate his first-round draft status, success is not completely new to Williams, who made a Pro Bowl in 2016 and had a career-high 11.5 sacks in 2020 to earn a three-year, $63 million contract extension. One of the many big decisions awaiting in the offseason is whether to keep the two together or save $12 million against a $32 million salary cap charge by cutting Williams — perhaps redirecting the money to extend Lawrence beyond 2023.
“There was a point where we looked at each other like, ‘We’re going to have to keep stepping up to keep playing together,’ ” Lawrence said. “Because if you keep losing, they don’t keep people around long. I want to win for him just to keep playing with him. Things like that is kind of what we talked about. Putting in the work to actually go do it is a different thing.”
Martindale was on the Ravens coaching staff for Haloti Ngata’s final two Pro Bowl seasons and Brandon Williams’ first in 2018. In both cases, half of a pair.
Leonard Williams, right, and Dexter Lawrence have powered the Giants’ defense. USA TODAY Sports“We have a huge luxury of having … two of the best guys in the league at that position, in my opinion,” safety Julian Love said. “For years they’ve been working to perfect their craft now. Their names are starting to be acknowledged more, but they’ve always been those types of players. Especially on the back end, we know that the inside run and the middle is locked up.”
Because they also stuff the run, Lawrence (No. 2) and Williams (No. 8) form the highest-rated tandem of interior defenders in the league, according to Pro Football Focus. The Titans’ Jeffery Simmons-Teair Tart, Colts’ DeForest Buckner-Grover Stewart, and Eagles’ Javon Hargrave-Jordan Davis carry bigger profiles but take a backseat in grades.
“We want to keep growing and being as good as we can,” Lawrence said, “and doing the things that it takes to be legendary.”
They form a bit of an odd couple off the field. Lawrence admittedly is “a little more goofy,” which he hopes rubs off on Williams in exchange for some of his “life wisdom.”
“Dex is a destroyer on the football field, but when he comes off, he’s all playful,” Thibodeaux said. “Leonard, just how big he is and how strong he is, but then he’s still flexible. He can still do it, and he can still have fun. He’s been that glue that’s been keeping us together.”
On the field, they share a description.
“The word is dominant: They are both dominant in their own way,” said defensive tackle Justin Ellis, who spent five years with the Raiders and three with the Ravens. “Dex is a big guy who can move, and you feel like he can’t be blocked. Leo is very skilled. I agree with Wink: On the teams I’ve been around, they for sure are the best tandem.”
