Jamal Adams release brings to a close one of the worst trades in Seahawks' history

The Seattle Seahawks have moved on from one of their biggest trades ever by releasing safety Jamal Adams. The oft-injured safety never came close to the success he found in his first season in Seattle.

The Seahawks have thrown in the towel on the Jamal Adams experience. Adams, along with fellow Quandre Diggs and tight end Will Dissly, were released today, as first reported by NFL Network reporter Tom Pelissero. These are likely only the first of what will be several more cap space moves by Seahawks GM John Schneider.

Jamal Adams became a fan favorite after his first spectacular season with the Hawks, but that relationship turned as injuries repeatedly kept him out of the lineup for the bulk of his time in Seattle. That's not that surprising, considering he went from setting the all-time league record for sacks by a safety to absolute zero over his next three seasons.

The Seattle Seahawks apparently had seen enough of Adams

Actually, the issue is they hadn't seen nearly enough of Adams in the past two seasons. While he battled injuries in both 2020 and 2021, his subsequent years with the Hawks showed more activity on the weekly injury reports than the stats sheets. That's hardly the fault of Adams.

You could also say that his drop from 9.5 sacks to zero wasn't entirely his fault, either. Whether it was Ken Norton Jr.'s decision, or Pete Carroll's, the coaching staff made drastic changes to their use of Adams after his initial season in Seattle. From 784 snaps, he blitzed 98 times in 2020. The following year, he blitzed just 22 times from 872 snaps. Of course, he missed almost all of 2022 but had 518 snaps last year. New DC in Clint Hurtt, same result: just 22 blitzes and zero sacks.

In the end, no, the trade wasn't worth it. I'll still defend the trade as I always have, as no one could foresee the injury issues he faced. One of the issues with Adams this season was that he appeared to have forgotten the meaning of the word team. Yes, it's possible to defend a team decision made four years ago and agree with a very different decision made years later. The circumstances obviously changed.

According to Pelissero, cutting Adams and Diggs alone gives the Seahawks an additional $27.5 million in cap space this season. Injury guarantees built into the CBA may have a minor impact on this in Adams' case. I say minor like a million dollars is small potatoes. But in the grand scheme of things, yeah, it's a minor adjustment.

Per spotrac.com, the release of Diggs cleared $11 million in cap space. They haven't listed the precise figure for Adams yet, but it would appear that he was designated as a post-June 1st release, as that would clear $16.5 million, the balance mentioned by Pelissero. Good luck to the Prez, where he goes. As it turned out, that initial information was not correct. As Brady Henderson later reported, the Seahawks did not designate Adams as a post-June 1st release. Per overthecap.com, the Hawks cut a total of $24 million off their cap, including the release of Diggs and Dissly.

So that isn't quite the $27.5 million that was initially reported just for the Hawks safeties. The total cap space for the team is now $36.2 million. Ah, the joys of rushing to be first. There are some rumors that Seattle could bring Adams back under a new contract. I would hope it would be at the veteran minimum, and even then, it makes zero sense. Diggs or Dissly, yes. But Adams? He didn't exactly go out like Earl Thomas, but he wasn't that far off.

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