Jamal Adams hated losing so much when he was on the Jets that he claimed it made him depressed to the point where getting out of New York and playing on a winning team was all that mattered to him.
Adams did everything in his power to facilitate a trade in July 2020. He talked his way out of town and burned bridges along the way. Joe Douglas eventually had enough and sent the All-Pro safety to the Seahawks, where it seemed the safety would have a chance at winning a Super Bowl and getting paid.
Two years later, Adams has gotten paid. But he’s right back at square one when it comes to playing for a team in the midst of a massive rebuild with no real designs on winning now.
Seattle cleaned house on Tuesday, sending Russell Wilson to the Broncos in a blockbuster trade. The Seahawks also parted ways with future Hall of Fame linebacker Bobby Wagner to clear salary cap space. Those two moves officially brought an end to the Seahawks’ days as a perennial NFC West contender.
Adams is now left looking like Will Smith in the final scene of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Wilson was the lifeblood of the organization as it competed for the Lombardi Trophy on a yearly basis. Wagner made Pete Carroll’s defense go. Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf remain, but who knows for how long — although Metcalf is a safe bet to remain with the organization barring a trade request.
All Adams has done in his two years with the organization is cash in on the lucrative contract extension he had been seeking for years while catching flak for being more of a box linebacker than an actual safety.
Adams is a big reason why the Seahawks are where they are now. Seattle traded what wound up being a top 10 pick for him and had no choice but to extend him to justify the trade package. Adams’ contract isn’t the sole reason the Seahawks decided to start over, but they needed more financial flexibility and draft capital after an underachieving 2021 season.
Adams is now one of Seattle’s building blocks for the future — a position he once found himself in with the Jets. There is no denying Adams and his talent. He is elite at what he does as a safety who can dominate at the line of scrimmage when he’s on his game. The Jets sure didn’t trade him due to a lack of production.
But Adams has shown that he is not equipped to handle the kind of losing the Seahawks are likely to endure next season with any sort of grace. Carroll better stock up on aspirin this offseason. Adams could be on the verge of becoming a very expensive headache.
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