Trading safety Jamal Adams to the Seattle Seahawks was perhaps the most effective move made by general manager Joe Douglas of the New York Jets. Trading a disgruntled star for draft money to eventually acquire offensive tackle Alijah Vera-Tucker and receiver Garrett Wilson is the kind of trade that keeps front offices busy and speeds up rebuilds. The Jets prevailed in the separation, but four seasons later, Adams is back on the radar screen for the New York supporters. Talk about Adams’ future and the potential return to the Jets has been dominated by largely unverified speculations
The Adams choice should be reexamined when he liked a post about Seattle cutting him and responded, “run it back,” to a supporter of his former NFL team.
About Adams returning to the Big Apple after becoming a cap casualty, there has been very little to no real news. For the purposes of speculative off-season scenarios, however, Adams ought not to be a free agent target for the Jets.
To put it simply, Adams isn’t a good fit for the defense of head coach Robert Saleh. With the exception of 2021 and 2022, when he played just 15 snaps, Adams has spent the majority of his snaps in the box, where he earns his living.
It makes reasonable that both of New York’s starting safeties were away from the line of scrimmage much of the time, considering how often Saleh is covered. The league average rates for quarters and Cover 6 were 15.2 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively, according to MatchQuarters and Pro Football Focus. The Jets outperformed the league average in Cover 6 (10.8 percent) and ran the second-most quarters (27.6 percent). Because they are regularly required to cover the deeper regions of the field, whether it be matching a vertical route or covering a deep half, both ask their safety to depend more on their athleticism and open-field coverage skills.
Adams’ game has never been at its finest like that. Adam hasn’t had a coverage grade of more than 52.5 in a season other than 2021, according to PFF, since leaving New York. His 50.7 coverage grade this season, for instance, placed him 74th out of 82 safeties with the same number of snaps in coverage. That 2020 score of 52.5 would have placed 72nd. Adams has also not been well lately. He was sidelined for nearly the whole 2022 season due to a thigh quad rupture, and many believe he wasn’t performing well this season, which he also sustained a concussion from.
He had the worst run defense and tackling grades of his career in 2023, regardless of whether he was hurt, as head coach Pete Carroll had suggested. The final four games for the team saw him not play. Given that Adams isn’t the best player in the back seven and that his best football is behind him, it’s difficult to envisage a situation where Douglas is motivated to sign Adams.
It’s possible that the safety has already outlived his welcome. Adams forced his way out of the Jets debate the first time around, but he came back in 2023 when he insulted the wife of a beat reporter after one of his bad plays was called out on social media. Ever since pledging to improve Jets supporters’ lot in life
Adams departed when things became difficult. It’s his right to do so, and it’s not right to demonize him for pursuing his professional goals. However, he made fun of New York as he was leaving, and he hasn’t lived up to the hype of being the franchise-altering sixth-overall pick in the years since. It makes sense that a large number of fans were offended by the prospect of his comeback. Adams is not needed by the Jets or the fan base. An company would be better off focusing its attention and resources elsewhere if it weren’t already engulfed in the chaos caused by Aaron Rodgers.
