Seahawks’ first impressions of smiling Jamal Adams on day one: ‘He is the real deal’
Jamal Adams wasn’t five minutes into his first stretching drills in his first practice with his new team. Yet he was already smiling.
Yes, the 24-year-old All-Pro safety is happy with his trade from the New York Jets to the Seahawks last month.
Two weeks ago Adams said “everything has to be precise” with him. He said he wanted “to hit on the nose” his first acts in Seattle, that he wanted to “be perfect.”
He looked that for the Seahawks’ defense on the first day of training camp.
He looked like what he is: the biggest catch of Seattle’s offseason.
Three weeks after the Seahawks traded two first-round picks and veteran starter Bradley McDougald to get him, Adams ran decisively next to free safety partner Quandre Diggs in the back of a Seattle defense remade for 2020. Adams was the starting strong safety from the first snap of Wednesday’s initial practice of training camp.
“Well, brings a smile to my face,” Carroll said of Adams, chuckling.
That’s the teacher in the 68-year-old Carroll talking.
Carroll was a college defensive back in the early 1970s, at Pacific. He was a defensive backs coach and coordinator before becoming a head coach. He demands of his cornerback and safeties specific, peculiar fundamentals with feet and hands that many arriving veterans say are unique to Seattle.
In the first minutes of Wednesday’s no-pads practice, assistant coaches showed Adams the footwork the Seahawks want him to use while taking on blockers in the open field. Adams stood in front of a blocking sled. He watched the instruction for a moment. Then the Pro Bowl selection in two of his first three NFL seasons mimicked the teaching with shuffling feet while his hands smacked loudly off the pads of the metal sled.
The coaches shouted their approval.
“He’s really sharp,” said Carroll, who has likened Adams to former Seahawks Legion of Boom stars Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor. “He’s really competitive, in that he cares. He wants to know all the details. He wants to be corrected. He wants to be helped, taught, coached and all that.
“He’s got the kind of focus — he’s got a unique focus — that some great players we’ve had have really demonstrated.
“I just know that he is the real deal. You can see it on film. You can see it when you meet him. And he gets along really well.”
Seattle defense’s sunk from 11th in total yards allowed in 2018 to 26th last season. Its ranking of 27th in pass defense in the first full season without Thomas swarming from the back of it is sacrilege to the legacy of Thomas, Chancellor, Richard Sherman and their Legion of Boom.
“First off, I want to say that I respect every guy that was in the ‘Legion of Boom,’” Adams said last month. “I used to watch those guys, from Earl to Chance to Sherm, just all throughout college. After every game — you know, Saturday we play, and then Sunday here comes NFL football — man, I used to watch those guys and used to be inspired by the energy and the love and the passion that they played with.
“And I always had that passion and energy, so I admired it from afar. … So I have so much respect for those guys.
“But, you know, again, their chapter is over with. And we have to, as a defensive group and as a defensive-back group, we have to create our own legacy, right?”
The Seahawks say, exactly, positively right.
They sent a huge bounty to the Jets for Adams, plus a draft choice to Washington in March for new cornerback Quinton Dunbar, to fix 2019’s woes in the secondary.
Carroll, general manager John Schneider and defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. coveted Adams’ versatility at playing the run like a linebacker and the pass like a cornerback. They love his tantalizing skill at blitzing and pressuring quarterbacks at all angles (his 6 1/2 sacks last season with the Jets would have led Seattle, by 2 1/2 sacks). They see him and Diggs as potentially interchangeable in assignments, alignments and responsibilities by the snap this season. That has the potential to confuse quarterbacks and optimize the most favorable matchups with opposing receivers for Seattle.
But these first four, non-padded practices won’t be the best ways to discern how the Seahawks are going to employ Adams. He’s still learning his way around the defense. A couple times during Wednesday’s first practice Diggs had to redirect Adams in the correct direction just before snaps.
Plus, the defense is not scrimmaging against the offense until Friday, the third practice. Pads don’t come on for real football until Monday. That’s the first of 14 full-pads practices before this NFL COVID-19 season like no other is scheduled to begin, for Seattle Sept. 13 at Atlanta.
Adams’ contract ends following the 2021 season. Part of his reason he wanted out of New York was his contract. He and the Seahawks have agreed to table that issue until next year. He likely will be seeking to become the NFL’s highest-paid safety, at perhaps $16 million per season.
He said last month, even before practicing with his new team for the first time, he wanted to be a Seahawk for the rest of his career.
“The plan is to retire here, you know what I mean? That is my plan,” Adams said July 30.
For now, Adams’ first splashes in Seattle are refreshing Carroll and the Seahawks.
“He has really high expectations on what he is going to bring to the team, how he’s going to help out,” Carroll said. “But he also has a really cool thought about it and approach about it, that he knows he has to earn it every step of the way.
“It’s a great combination. He’s not too full of himself. He wants to be a great player — but he also wants to work for it.
“That’s all we can ask for.”
This story was originally published August 12, 2020 at 5:26 PM.
