Jamal Adams: More surgeries than interceptions with Seahawks. About that trade...
It’s been two seasons since they traded an large amount of their future to get him.
Then they invested record money to keep him.
So what have the Seahawks gotten in return for what they’ve paid for Jamal Adams?
Beyond the numbers, that is. Because those numbers are not in Seattle’s favor.
Not yet, anyway. He remains under contract with the team through 2025.
Adams was coming off a 2019 season in which he was an All-Pro safety for the Jets when the Seahawks traded two first-round draft choices and veteran starter Bradley McDougald to New York to get him in the summer of 2020. It was the definition of a win-now move.
Adams set an NFL record for defensive backs with 9 1/2 sacks in 2020 while playing in 12 of 16 games. His Seahawks went 12-4 and won the NFC West. They made the playoffs for the eighth time in nine seasons. But they lost their first playoff game, in the wild-card round at home to the division-rival Los Angeles Rams.
Adams’ 2021 season is over. He finished with zero sacks blitzing half the time this year. He has played 12 of 17 games for a team that is 4-8 entering its game Sunday at Houston (2-10).
Adams won’t play in that, or in any other game this season. Coach Pete Carroll confirmed Adams is having his second shoulder surgery in less than a year, a season-ending operation Thursday in Texas.
The coach said Adams was “rocked” by the news of being out for the year. It means his Pro Bowl safety partner Quandre Diggs will have Ryan Neal starting with him instead of Adams.
After Thursday’s operation, Adams will have more surgeries (three, including for repairing ruined fingers after last year) than interceptions (two) while as a Seahawk.
What have the Seahawks gotten for their huge investment in Adams, beyond those ugly numbers?
Carroll sounded more than ready for that question Wednesday.
“Immediately,” the coach said. “When you give away a number-one pick, that pick is going to come in the future. But we got him immediately. Immediately, last year, he had a huge impact.
“He’s continued to have a huge impact. Our safeties have played terrific football. These guys are really good together and play off of one another. All of the hype is about sacks. When was the last time somebody hyped up a safety’s sack numbers and made a big deal about it? It’s because he had such a phenomenal year last year.”
Adams’ 2020 vs. 2021
The coach had a ready reason for why Adams has gone from:
- 9 1/2 sacks, 26 pressures with 98 blitzes in 12 games last year, per Pro Football Reference
to:
- zero sacks, six pressures in 44 blitzes in 12 games this year
“We weren’t able to capitalize this year as much as we would have liked,” Carroll said, “but we came out trying.”
Carroll said offenses now specifically scheme and block for Adams, less so last year. So the Seahawks have decided not to blitz Adams uselessly into brick walls.
More than half of Adams’ sacks in 2020, five of them, were when he was unblocked. Offenses just missed him blitzing.
“We’re just adapting to what’s going on,” Carroll said. “We would like to get sacks, too, so if we could have gotten that done, then we would have.
“Schematically, he’s such a target that people paid attention, wherever he was, he was always accounted for. The year before it didn’t happen like that all of the time. The statement hadn’t been made that the guy made a historic run at sacks. That went through the offseason, all of the publicity, and the hype, and the opponents don’t want to get beat in the same fashion, so they schemed to do a better job of it. ...
“Thirty-three walks up (before the snap) and they go, ‘OK, he’s right over there!’ so that he is accounted for, at all times. We rushed him from all different angles. He was all over the place. We found that wasn’t the right thing to do, just wasting him by running him into an offensive line. It wasn’t the right thing.”
So he blitzed less than half the time this season as opposed to last. He was back in pass coverage more.
In 2020 quarterbacks targeted Adams 45 times with passes. They completed 35 of them, for a gaudy passer rating of 104.7 against him, according to Pro Football Reference.
In 2021, Adams was targeted 51 times. QBs completed 30 of those, for a passer rating of 93.8.
In what proved to be his final full game of this season Adams hit Logan Thomas after the tight end grabbed a fourth-down pass at the goal line late at Washington. Thomas lost the ball as he came to the ground. Officials originally ruled it a touchdown but replay review reversed that call. Russell Wilson turned that turnover on downs into a frantic touchdown drive and came within an interception on the ensuing two-point conversion try from sending that game into overtime. Seattle lost 17-15.
In the coach’s words and mind, the trade and contract for Adams have been a success. “Fantastic,” in fact.
“He’s meant a tremendous amount,” Carroll said. “He’s physical. He’s tough. He has great energy, practices like crazy, and it’s really important to him. The leadership that comes from a guy that plays that hard and throws his body around as much as he does is hard to measure.
“I think he’s been a fantastic get for us. I go back to, you get him immediately and he’s playing for you. You pick another guy, then you figure out can he play and how does he do as he transitions into the league? We had an immediate response out of that.”
Bummed
Adams had an immediate response out of learning he needed his second surgery on his left shoulder for the same issue, a torn labrum, in less than 11 months. He sought a second opinion all day Tuesday, only to have it confirm the first, that he needed the operation now.
“Yeah, he was really emotional about it (Tuesday) night,” Carroll said, “just because it means so much to him to keep playing.
“He’s been through this before and has to go through it again.”
By Wednesday, the reality of his season being over had sunk in with Adams, his coach said.
“He was much more forward-thinking (Wednesday) morning in the note that I got from him,” Carroll said.
“He’s going to make the most of it.”
Neal will make his fifth start for Adams in two seasons on Sunday in Houston. Defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. said Adams has become invaluable to what the Seahawks do on defense.
“You can’t really replace a guy like that, there’s no doubt,” Norton said following practice Wednesday. “His energy, his enthusiasm, what he brings to the team, and how hard he works, you can’t really replace him.
“Obviously, Ryan has been in this position before. He’s really stepped up and has done a really good job.
“But we will miss Jamal, no doubt.”
Neal said he was sick for Adams. He said he talked to the star on Monday about the injury, when Adams was learning he needed season-ending surgery.
“And he was heartbroken. Anybody would be, and I’m heartbroken for him,” Neal said.
“We work so hard on something, and it gets taken away on a routine play. The fact that it’s the shoulder that he got worked on, it breaks my heart even more. He was like, ‘Dude, it’s the same problem I had last year.’ Like I told him to just take the time, get away from it, get off of the phone, go through your emotions, and let it go through, so that way you can move on and get back into it.
“You already know that we are looking forward to him coming back. I’m looking forward to him coming back next year, we’re excited, and he was having a great season. Of course, everybody talks about the blitzes, but the work that he was doing on the back end, the communication and getting everybody lined up, and still flying around making plays with his energy and presence, he was doing that at an all time high.
“Right now, he’s going through it and all we can do is be right there for him, love him up, and help him get on the road to recovery.”
Adams may be reminding himself of what he said late last month, following the Seahawks’ home loss to Arizona that left them 3-7.
“In life, you go through a lot of ups and downs. You go through a lot of BS. You lose people. You have incidents. Whatever it is. You go through a lot of ups and downs, a lot of trial and error in life,” he said Nov. 21.
“You have to keep going. The day you stop, the day you quit, that’s the day you’ve failed. That’s the day you die.
“I just try to stay positive with my mindset. I try to appreciate that in the locker room as well. Nothing in life is perfect. You just have to keep on fighting, keep on going.
“Sooner or later, that storm will end.”
This story was originally published December 8, 2021 at 5:55 PM.
