Jamal Adams’ 2023 season is over, and it’s not one that will live long in the memory for him or the Seattle Seahawks.
The 2017 sixth overall pick was placed on injured reserve ahead of Sunday’s crucial matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Seattle also placed wide receiver Dee Eskridge on injured reserve and released edge rusher Frank Clark.
Adams has missed the last two games with a knee injury, his involvement in a campaign in which he made his return from a torn quad suffered in the 2022 season opener limited to just nine games.
In those nine games Adams has done nothing to shake the image of him being a one-dimensional player at this point in his career, one who can make a significant impact playing from the box close to the line of scrimmage but who struggles significantly in coverage.
Adams has allowed a passer rating of 122.1 when targeted this season, the 14th-worst among safeties with at least 200 coverage snaps.
Unable to stay healthy and a clear detriment to the Seahawks in the most critical area of modern defense, there is little reason for Seattle to retain Adams’ services next year even if the organization is keen to get what it can out of a player it traded two first-round picks to acquire.
Releasing Adams, per Spotrac, would cost the Seahawks $20.8 million in dead cap charges, but they would save $6 million against the cap in 2024.
In a division in which the Seahawks have fallen well adrift of the San Francisco 49ers and also have to contend with a Los Angeles Rams team that swept them this season, the extra financial flexibility with which to improve the roster would be extremely useful to Seattle.
With Quandre Diggs and Julian Love clearly the top two safeties on the roster and Coby Bryant also capable of playing in that spot, Adams is a luxury player the Seahawks don’t need.
At this point, there is no denying the trade with the New York Jets to land Adams was a mistake, and it would only exacerbate that error if the Seahawks hung on to him in the vain hope of eliciting some belated impact from a player whose prime already appears to have been and gone. It’s time to move on.
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