The New York Jets come to M&T Bank today to take on the Baltimore Ravens in Week 15. It’s a game that looks like a bloodbath waiting to happen on the surface but that doesn’t mean New York is devoid of talent.
When looking over the Jets’ roster, they have quite a few key players but just haven’t managed to put it all together yet. Partially due to an injury report that looks more like a league transaction list than an individual team’s game status and partially due to the team still figuring out all the parts in between their stars.
But one player stands out above the rest and is a player that would look good in purple. In fact, it’s one player that could very well end up in Baltimore next season given how the Jets were shopping him earlier this season.
New York, for reasons best known only to themselves, were entertaining trade offers for safety Jamal Adams prior to the deadline. He remained with the team, but the Ravens were among the teams interested in making a deal. If they were open to the idea during the season, it makes sense they’ll draw more offers in the offseason.
This is Adams’ third season with the Jets after they spent the sixth-overall pick on him in the 2017 NFL Draft. He was fairly quiet as a rookie but has stepped up in a big way in the last two campaigns. He has 18 passes defended in his last 28 games along with two interceptions. One of these he took all the way for a touchdown. This season he has also improved his play in pass coverage too.
In 2018, he was allowing 55% of passes sent in his direction to completed for an average of 12.3 yards per completion and 6.8 yards per target. This year, he’s allowing only 51.7% of the passes to be completed, at a 9.2 YPC and 4.8 YPT average.
Adams has also been used more to apply pressure on the quarterback this year, with 65 blitzes in 12 games compared to 69 in 16 a year ago. This usage has seen him rack up 6.5 sacks this season, the most among all safeties. Adams has become a much surer tackler too. In 2018, 9.4% of his tackle attempts were missed. This year he knocked this average down to 4.5%.
Adams is likely to be missing on Thursday night as he nurses a foot injury. It’s possible then that he has already played his last game for the Jets, especially if teams show a renewed interest in trading for him this offseason. But don’t be terribly shocked if Baltimore is among those calling New York to see if they can make a deal happen as they look to bolster their secondary further thanks to an expected large amount of cap space available.
The Ravens have got by at safety with Earl Thomas, Chuck Clark, and Anthony Levine ever since Tony Jefferson and DeShon Elliott were lost for the season in October.
Clark has shown vast improvement after a shaky rookie season in which he gave up 11 receptions for 123 yards and three touchdowns in pass coverage. But Adams offers so much versatility in both pass and rush defense that a defensive mind like coordinator Wink Martindale would probably think all his Christmases had come at once if Baltimore were to land him.
The asking price is still likely to be high, but maybe Adams’ disenchantment with the Jets could force them to accept a more palatable offer. Adams was angry that the Jets had seemingly gone behind his back in shopping him. Adams and Thomas together, in concert with Marcus Peters and Marlon Humphrey at cornerback, would make the Ravens’ secondary one to be rightly feared.