‘I’m back.’ Fingers fused, shoulder fixed, Jamal Adams returns to changed Seahawks defense
“I’m back.”
That was Jamal Adams Tuesday.
So much has changed since Adams last talked to the media and last played for the Seahawks. SO much.
Until Tuesday’s first day of a three-day mandatory veteran minicamp at team headquarters, Adams hadn’t been on a field since last Dec. 5. That was during a win for Seattle at home over San Francisco.
Days later, he and his team decided the star strong safety would have the same shoulder surgery to repair the same injury, torn labrum, he’d had the winter before after his abbreviated 2020 season. He also had each of two fingers on his left hands fused in the form of a claw, to correct pain he’s had in them the last two seasons.
He held up middle digits he can’t straighten, nor curl.
“I’ll never be able to bend them fully. But it is what it is. It’s for the love of the game,” he said. “I’ve been going through that for two years now. My first year when I got here, I dislocated my ring finger probably about 10 times and the other one probably about 12 times, so I’ve been dealing with that.
“I haven’t really said much, let everybody talk about it, whatever. But it’s good now.
“And they are in trouble.”
All that’s new
Since Adams last played, the Seahawks finished the 2021 season 7-10. They missed the playoffs for just the second time in 10 years. In last season’s final game, in January, Adams’ partner at safety Quandre Diggs broke his leg.
While Adams recovered from his third and fourth surgeries on his shoulder and fingers in the last two winters, Seattle coach Pete Carroll fired defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. soon after last season ended. Carroll promoted line coach Clint Hurtt to replace Norton.
Hurtt and Carroll hired Sean Desai away from the Chicago Bears and Karl Scott from the Minnesota Vikings to remake the secondary.
Most jolting, the Seahawks sent away franchise cornerstones Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner. The Seahawks traded their quarterback Wilson to the Denver Broncos and decided to release their All-Pro linebacker Wagner on the same Tuesday in March. Wagner later signed with the division-rival Los Angeles Rams.
That makes Adams now the Seahawks’ highest-paid player. They gave him a $70 million extension with $38 million guaranteed before last season began. It’s the richest deal for a safety in NFL history.
Money talks in the NFL — in most of life, really.
Money talked on Tuesday.
“I’m feeling good. Just going to take it day to day and will, obviously, be ready for training camp,” Adams said after he and Diggs returned to the defense in a walk-through practice indoors.
“Man, it’s been a toll. But it’s temporary, you know what I mean?” Adams said. “Sometimes you go through things in life that you really didn’t want to go through. But at the end of the day, it made me stronger mentally and physically. I’m just looking forward to the challenge.”
Asked what he is able to do less than six months following his surgeries, Adams flashed a deadpan look and said: “Everything.”
That’s what feels like has changed since Adams has been out on defense.
Everything.
The new plan on defense
Josh Jones, a former starter with Green Bay and Jacksonville Seattle signed as a free agent last year, and returning safety Ryan Neal were the first-team safeties during the outdoor practice Tuesday. But Adams and Diggs, back on the field following his surgery with a specialist in Wisconsin in January, plan on being with the starting unit in training camp. That begins the last week of July.
They will be running a more interchangeable, versatile defense. It has four linebackers in front of them, rather than the three Wagner anchored in the middle.
It’s now less of Carroll’s old 4-3 base with Cover 3, two-deep-safety zone coverage. It’s much more of a varied, 3-4 style with speed, different coverages, safeties rotating near and away from the line in single- and two-high zone and man coverage snap to snap. Outside linebackers Darrell Taylor, newly signed Uchenna Nwosu and rookie second-round pick Boye Mafe are the primary pass rushers instead of departed ends Carlos Dunlap, Kerry Hyder and Benson Mayowa.
Seattle’s idea for 2022 is for Adams and Diggs to move around play to play, to keep offenses from clearly identifying then double-teaming Adams “in the box,” closer to the line of scrimmage as they did last year.
Hurtt has declined to specify exactly how he will use Adams this season. It’s likely to be more of a roving wild card before the snap that he was in 2020. That was Adams’ Seattle debut season. He set the NFL record for defensive backs with 9 1/2 sacks more than doubling two years ago the blitzing rate he had in 12 games last season.
This year’s is more like the defense Adams starred in during his college days at LSU, and as a rookie with Todd Bowles’ New York Jets in 2018.
“It’s really exciting, we brought in some coaches that really are eager to teach everybody,” Adams said. “It’s a defense that I know Diggs and I are really excited to be a part of. It’s very aggressive to where we can be interchangeable and to where we can make a lot of plays on the back end.
“Just keeping everything not always the same, you know what I mean? You can disguise everything. You can move around. I can be in the box sometimes. I can be in the back end sometimes. And I can be blitzing, whatever the case may be.
“It’s a really creative defense and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Familiar for Adams, Diggs
One walk-through practice and weeks of in-person and Zoom meetings into it, Diggs already loves the new defense.
“I ran this exact defense my first three years in the league (with Detroit in 2015-17). So, very familiar with it and I enjoy it,” he said.
“I think a lot of people think being multiple means disguising and all that, but that’s not necessarily true. I think you can show the same look each play, and everything could be different. So I think it’s dope.
“You get to do a little bit more, you know. I kind of get back to my roots and being able to play in the box. Play it up high. Play quarters. Play all the different stuff.
“So I think it’s, it’s real dope, and continues to show that I’m versatile and I can do those different things.”
Diggs is coming off consecutive Pro Bowl selections, the first two of his seven-year career, the last 2 1/2 seasons with Seattle. The Seahawks re-signed him for three years and $40 million in March.
They have invested $110 million at safety since last summer. It’s a position the league typically doesn’t spend the biggest bucks on, compared to pass rusher and cornerback.
That huge money comes with responsibilities beyond playing safety. Wilson and Wagner, in particular on defense, being gone means this Seahawks team has and needs new leadership.
Or, in the case of Adams and Diggs, renewed leadership.
“Those guys are different, man,” Adams said of Wagner and Wilson. “You can’t replace those guys. They are Hall-of-Fame guys, but not only that, for what they do on the field they are great people off of the field. And that’s what makes them special.”
“Oh, most definitely, it definitely feels different. But at the end of the day, those guys are where they need to be, and we’re here. New leaders and new guys have to step up and rise to the challenge.”
Including him, Adams was asked?
“Absolutely.”
This story was originally published June 8, 2022 at 6:54 AM.
