He’s not ‘bored’: Seahawks’ Jamal Adams gets shot at ex-Jets--but not at Gregg Williams
Jamal Adams has lost his chance to stick it to his former coach who thought Adams would be “bored” by now.
He’ll have to settle for the chance to stick it to his former, fallen team, instead.
The All-Pro safety won’t get to show his former defensive coordinator with the Jets, Gregg Williams, he’s not at all bored with all the sacks and plays he’s been making for the Seahawks when Seattle (8-4) hosts New York on Sunday at Lumen Field.
The Jets (0-12) fired Williams Monday.
Sunday, the outspoken, unconventional defensive play caller chose an all-out blitz on the Raiders’ final play as New York’s way to protect a 28-24 lead with 13 seconds left. Derek Carr’s third-and-10 pass found Henry Ruggs for the winning, 46-yard touchdown. Ruggs easily ran a stop-and-go route past Jets cornerback Lamar Jackson. Jackson had no safety help deep to the end zone—because Williams had sent him into the line to shadow Carr possibly scrambling, instead.
Inside-linebackers coach Frank Bush’s first game as the Jets’ interim defensive coordinator is Sunday in Seattle.
“Yeah, I’m not worried about them, man,” Adams said.
That was moments after he and his Seahawks allowed New York’s other team to score 17 unanswered points in the second half of Seattle’s galling, 17-12 loss to the Giants last weekend.
“I’m worried about fixing these mistakes and getting better.
“You know, we’ll see them next Sunday.”
Not ‘bored’
After months of bad feelings between Adams and his former team, the Jets traded Adams to the Seahawks in July for two first-round draft choices plus reliable veteran starter Bradley McDougald. Williams then told reporters in New York: “We’re very multiple in how we do those things (compared to Pete Carroll’s schemes with the Seahawks).
“Jamal may get bored there, because they don’t use their safety-type things and all the different complexities...maybe not showing what they’re doing as much as we do.”
Well, that was the pre-Adams Seahawks.
Carroll and defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. have this season with Adams blitzed more than they ever have in Seattle.
Moments after Adams completed his frenetic, blitzing, impressive first game for the Seahawks—a career-high-tying 12 tackles, blitzing all over the field, a sack, two tackles for losses, two hits on Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan in Seattle’s 38-25 victory over the Falcons in September—Adams deadpanned: “I wasn’t bored.”
Adams’ latest blitz and sack against the Giants last weekend gave him 7 1/2 sacks in eight games; he missed four games through October with a strained groin. The sacks are a new career high for Adams, one more than he had blitzing for Williams in all of 2019, or anyone else over any of his three seasons with the Jets.
With four games left in the regular season Adams is a half sack short of an NFL record for sacks by a defensive back. Adrian Wilson had eight in 2005 for the Cardinals.
The Seahawks have also in the five games since Adams returned from injury been increasingly varied and tricky in their pre-snap looks and schemes. They are sending Adams from his strong-safety spot plus linebackers Bobby Wagner and K.J. Wright, even nickel defensive back Ugo Amadi, onto the line just before third downs and long-yardage plays—but then often dropping most or all of those would-be blitzers back into pass coverage.
Carroll and the Seahawks rarely did that kind of disguising and chess-playing before snaps in previous years. Then, they just lined up in cover three and played. They rarely blitzed or disguised. They had swarms of defensive linemen—Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril, Chris Clemons and friends—they could count on for more consistent pass rush than their front four have given them most of this season.
A criticism of the 25-year-old Adams from the outside is he’s not an all-around safety, not a blitzer, tackler AND pass-coverage ace. he may not be worth the $16 million per year or more he will be seeking next year in the final year of his contract.
But expect the Seahawks to make Adams the NFL’s highest-paid safety before the end of 2021. His best skill has improved what had been the team’s biggest weakness for years: its pass rush, in a passer-and-sack-the-passer league.
Plus, Adams has shown in-your-face leadership in huddles between plays, on the sidelines between series and around the practice field Seattle has lacked from its secondary since Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman and Kam Chancellor left and ended the “Legion of Boom” era over the previous three years.
In coverage
That fire cuts both ways.
Last weekend, the Giants had second and goal from the 6 while leading 8-5 late in the third quarter. The Seahawks’ defense was trying to make a stand after the offense’s latest, baffling and soft play call on another failed fourth-down play at midfield.
Adams crept up to the left edge of the defensive line as if he was blitzing yet again. He was to the left of Wagner. New York had fill-in quarterback Colt McCoy turn and show the ball to basically no one; running back Alfred Morris had already headed directly into the short flat on a pass route, to Adams’ side.
Adams stayed inside as if playing run, and then as if covering tight end Kaden Smith on a pass route. But Smith was staying in to block Seattle linebacker K.J. Wright from getting outside left, to Morris.
Morris crossed easily past Adams alone into the flat at the 5-yard line. Wagner saw Morris and frantically ran past the stationary and hesitating Adams, in vain trying to reach Morris in time. As McCoy flipped a pass to the lonely running back, Wagner yelled at Adams. Wagner gestured at his eyes with his hand at Adams even while Morris was still crossing the goal line to make it 14-5 New York.
Asked after the game if there was a “miscommunication” about the coverage on that play, Adams said: “Nah.
“We were in a form of man (coverage). I had my guy. I didn’t see what was going on in the play, so I don’t really know what exactly what happened, so I’ve got to go back and look at the film.
“I didn’t see it.”
The fiery Adams has gotten heated when asked this season about his pass coverage. Analytics folks such as those who rate for Pro Football Focus have had Adams ranked among the league’s lowest safeties in coverage for most of 2020, after ranking him among the NFL’s best in 2019.
“How was my coverage?” Adams has asked media members on Zoom calls recently after games.
Entering last weekend’s game, Giants’ supreme tight end Evan Engram was a key match-up on routes against Adams. Yet Engram had just 32 yards on four, inconsequential catches and eight targets, with Adams as his primary defender, either in man or zone coverage.
Adams was in on the tackle on all four of Engram’s catches. Those were among Adams’ 11 stops against the Giants, tied with teammate Jordyn Brooks for the game high.
‘Ecstatic’ over the deal
Adams isn’t the only Seahawk really looking forward to Sunday.
Starting right tackle Brandon Shell has solidified the front-side pass protection for quarterback Russell Wilson since he signed a two-year, $11 million contract with Seattle in the spring as a free agent from the Jets.
Shell has missed the last two games because of a high-ankle sprain. Not surprisingly, Carroll says Shell is telling the Seahawks he intends to return to play this weekend against his old team.
Carroll said he is going to talk to Shell and to Adams on tempering their emotions, as the veteran coach does with all players in reunion-game situations.
So we know how it’s been for Adams. In the 4 1/2 months since the splashy trade and with Seattle minus a first-round pick in 2021 and ‘22, how’s the trade been for both teams?
In New York McDougald, five years older, is on injured reserve a year and a half after he had knee surgery. He played seven games for his new team. He already likely done in New York. He is due to be a free agent in March. The Jets just fired their coordinator. Head coach Adam Gase could be next. New York is trying to avoid joining the 2017 Cleveland Browns as the NFL’s only winless teams in the last dozen seasons.
In Seattle, Adams says he’s only now truly locking in to all the Seahawks’ schemes and what they ask him to do. His injury put him about a month behind his teammates. He plans on catching up over the final four games of the regular season in Seattle’s push for what would be Adams’ first time playing in the postseason.
Following Seattle’s win at Philadelphia two games ago, Adams was giddy about where he was—especially compared to where he could be.
“We are 8 and 3. Damn, that feels good. Let’s talk about that,” Adams said.
“You know, all the negatives, let’s miss all that.”
Carroll didn’t hesitate this week when asked to assess the trade.
“Oh, ecstatic. Ecstatic about it,” the coach said. “He’s been everything we could have hoped for, and at this point he’s going to keep getting better. ...
“He’s a fantastic player. I’m thrilled about the trade.”
