Jamal Adams was given some extra chances, some surprisingly. After the Seattle Seahawks finally gave up on him after several injury-riddled years, he landed with the Tennessee Titans, was released, and then with the Detroit Lions, who didn't re-sign him after the 2024 season.
Last year, he was signed by the Las Vegas Raiders, but one might wonder if that would have happened if Pete Carroll hadn't been the Raiders' head coach for a season. Now, Carroll is gone, fired after going 3-14 in 2025. Adams is also gone. What seems doubtful is him finding a new home.
Maybe he will, as he proved last season he is willing to make necessary changes. After playing safety for his first eight seasons, with diminishing results, he moved to inside linebacker last season and, stunningly, wasn't awful. He was definitely undersized for the position, which made his modicum of success even more surprising.
Former Seattle Seahawks star Jamal Adams could be looking at life beyond football
But will other teams, especially none led by his longtime Seahawks coach, want to take the same risk on Adams? That's a stretch.
Moreover, one reason Jamal Adams didn't last even longer with the Seahawks wasn't the size of his contract or poor play, but his attitude. In 2023, he got into an unnecessary spat with a reporter of his first team, the New York Jets, and made a terrible disparaging remark about the reporter's wife. He also chose not to be at Seattle's Week 15 game after being told he wouldn't be playing.
He would never play another down for Seattle. He isn't going to come back to the Pacific Northwest, either. The team, of course, has a new head coach in Mike Macdonald, and Macdonald has no experience working with Adams. The safety-turned-inside linebacker also doesn't appear to be a great fit in the organization's reset culture.
Jamal Adams is still only 30 years old (he turns 31 in October), but his body is likely much older in football years. How he managed to stay healthy for all of last season after not being available for a full season since 2018 is a mystery. That implies he will probably get hurt again in 2026 if he does find a new home, not that anyone is wishing for that to happen.
His best bet might be to wait until the season starts and find a team that has suffered an injury where Adams can provide depth. To be clear, that might be Adams' only option as he remains a free agent a few weeks before training camps begin.
It is easy to forget that Jamal Adams was once a great player. His 9.5 sacks in 2020 remain a record for a defensive back in the NFL. He was also a First- or Second-Team All-Pro between 2018 and 2020. That, in football years, feels like centuries ago, however.
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