Will Seahawks release Jamal Adams on Friday?
Will Seahawks release Jamal Adams on Friday?
Adams, Will Dissly, and Quandre Diggs are up for guarantees, will Pete Carroll pay up? 2/15/2023
I have long defended the Seahawks’ decision to trade for Jamal Adams and I still believe that the process of the deal made sense. Adams was the sixth overall pick of the 2017 NFL Draft and at the time many people praised the New York Jets for finally choosing a great player and didn’t seem to care that he was a safety. The consensus: “A”!
So three years later, after two Pro Bowl and two All-Pro nods, is so outlandish that a team would value Adams as still being worthy of a top-10 pick? Even knowing that his payday was on the horizon? Seattle expected the two first round picks dealt for Adams to be late on day one and sure enough, the 2021 selection was 23rd overall.
If we didn’t take anything else into consideration, giving up the 23rd overall pick for Jamal Adams in 2020 would be a steal.
What was less expected: Russell Wilson’s injury in 2021 and the Seahawks’ mini-collapse at 7-10, resulting in the Jets getting the 10th overall pick in 2022. Even Adams’s injuries have been surprising, I had forgotten by now that he only missed two career games prior to being traded to the Seahawks.
Still, we forgot that the Jets were lucky to recoup the top-10 pick (used on Garrett Wilson) that they used themselves on Jamal Adams and as a bonus they got the 23rd overall pick and a third round pick in 2021 (subsequently both were used to trade up for guard Alijah Vera-Tucker) and Bradley McDougald, while Seattle got back a fourth rounder that they used on Coby Bryant.
All things considered, the Seahawks lose the trade. Wilson and Vera-Tucker for an expensive Adams and Bryant is a rare win for New York. But Adams has given the Seahawks some quality reps too and at 27, his career doesn’t have to be over. The question this week is whether or not his Seattle Seahawks career could come to an end.
Adams is due a $2.56 million guarantee on Friday, the fifth day of the league year, if he’s still on the Seahawks roster.
We need to talk about why Jamal Adams is basically guaranteed that money anyway, and why Seattle could still choose to release him, but first a message from my sponsor.
This is Clark and he hasn’t had a haircut in a long time:
He can barely fit in his Seahawks jersey anymore! (And he can barely see through his facial hair, but is that as important as the Seahawks jersey?)
Clark needs to go to the groomer so he can see out of his eyes…AND FIT INTO HIS SEAHAWKS JERSEY! As most of you know, the price of a haircut these days is as out of control as Clark’s mane.
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But he also needs to look fit and trim and able to fit in his Seahawks jersey so you can’t miss this smile:
I will post Clark haircut updates after we make it to the groomer! Thank you!
Back to Adams—
John Gilbert of Field Gulls broke down Adams’ injury guarantee last September, when Adams got injured. The gist of it is that because there have been no positive updates on Adams’ quad injury, there should be no expectation that he can pass a physical this week. If Adams can’t pass a physical, then his contract deems that his on-the-job injury guarantees $2.56 million of his $11 million salary in 2023.
As Gilbert expertly explained in September, after Friday, Seattle will only be able to free up $8.44 million of his salary with his injury guarantee vested. This does not mean that the Seahawks couldn’t still choose to release Adams anyway.
If the Seahawks release Adams with no post-June 1 designation, then they must pay a lot of money against the 2023 salary cap: $21.33 million in signing bonus payments+$2.56 million in guaranteed salary=$23.89 million against the cap.
Because Adams has an $18.1 million salary cap hit in 2023, that means that Seattle would lose almost $6 million by releasing Adams. The Seahawks can’t afford that. No way.
However, if the Seahawks release Adams with a post-June 1 designation, they would save the remaining $8.44 million of his salary and push his prorated bonus amount for 2023 back into 2024. That makes Adams a very expensive player to not have on the roster for the next three years, but would save Seattle considerable cap space headed into a really strange offseason.
The Seahawks would likely have to use about half of that to keep Ryan Neal as a starting safety (the team still needs a starting safety if they cut Adams) but if they view Neal as the future at the position (though they are basically the same age) then it doesn’t make a lot of sense to pay Adams $8.44 million to be an off-ball linebacker/third safety.
Trading Jamal Adams seems unrealistic and wouldn’t save the Seahawks any additional cap space anyway.
The other option is to keep Jamal Adams, potentially lose Ryan Neal, and see if he cant keep it together in 2023 to revitalize a career that really didn’t seem to be that far off track a year ago. Again, I didn’t hate the process of trading for Adams. But the results have put the Seahawks in a very difficult position.
Other players with guarantees coming on Friday are Quandre Diggs, DK Metcalf, and Will Dissly.
Metcalf will get his guarantee. Diggs is an interesting case in that his $13.49 million base salary was only guaranteed for injury, given he was coming off of a serious one in 2021. But Diggs is healthy and Pete praised him as one of the few saviors of the Seattle defense in 2022, though I will say that is a massive base salary for a safety. It’s in line with Kevin Byard, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Harrison Smith, Justin Simmons, Eddie Jackson, and Budda Baker.
Adams is the only other player on Seattle’s roster with a base salary over $10 million, with Tyler Lockett ($9.7) and Uchenna Nwosu ($7.5) as the next closest.
Then Dissly had his $5.64 million base salary guaranteed for injury given his own history with those issues. Dissly was mostly healthy all year, but whether he’s as valuable as T.J. Hockenson at $9.2 million for 2023 (11th-highest for TEs) is an interesting question. I’ve written in the past that Dissly is not a complete tight end and though he catches everything (34 of 38 targets in 2022) his volume numbers (831 yards, 6 TD over the past three seasons combined) don’t seem to line up with the other top-paid tight ends in the NFL.
If the Seahawks had to choose between Dissly or Noah Fant, is letting Fant go the right choice?
Friday will give us some answers.
And speaking of getting cut, don’t forget Clark!
He’s looking back at you and saying, “What, you can’t afford $5 for all this Seahawks content???”
I like Neal just like everyone likes Neal (well, maybe not as much as everyone), but he's not and never will be close to Jamal Adams talent level. In the NFL I think two birds in the bush are worth more than one in the hand and Adams is worth the risk. In an extremely small sample size, I thought Adams looked amazing in his defensive role for the portion of the Denver game he was healthy for. I have little doubt that he is an obvious pro-bowl selection, likely all-pro, and potential DPOY. There is also a good chance that he never plays again, or if he does he is not able to play at that level and becomes a huge liability on the field. It really does feel like a 50/50 coin flip, but my FOMO won't let me move on. If we end up with no Neal and a bad Adams then it'll just suck a lot, but my fear of losing Neal is less than my dreams of DPOY Adams.
Cut Clark's hair yourself, if you think it is advisable to cut his hair at all. Maybe around the eyes, but otherwise, leave Clark's hair alone, is my opinion.
On Adams, I am out of ideas.