Seattle Seahawks just can't seem to quit Jamal Adams

By the end of the season, Jamal Adams will have played 34 of a possible 67 games since he was traded to the Seattle Seahawks before the 2020 season. In the past two years, he will have played just 10 of 34 possible games. No player wants to get badly injured, and Adams cannot help the fact he does stay hurt so much, but the Seahawks also need to make a tough business decision about Adams and release him.

But the likelihood of that happening appears to be quite small. In the Seahawks pre-game show ahead of Week 17, general manager John Schneider said Seattle hopes Adams will have his "best offseason" and return completely healthy by Week 1 of 2024.

Head coach Pete Carroll post-game after the loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers said of Adams, "We came to the conclusion together that he couldn’t get right, couldn’t get full speed, couldn’t put his foot in the ground (to cut)...I admire the heck out of him. He did everything he could. He busted his tail throughout the whole time with the right attitude..."

Seattle Seahawks should release Jamal Adams but they likely will not

Neither Schneider nor Carroll even hinted at the possibility that the team will need to explore all options this coming offseason when it comes to Adams. Maybe this is just classic Seahawks style and looking at almost every situation positively. But if Schneider and Carroll are just being completely honest then they are lying to themselves.

There is no reason to think Jamal Adams is ever going to remain consistently healthy and productive. He already had coverage issues before the 2020 trade and now he is horrible in that aspect. Seattle also tried Adams in more of a linebacker/safety hybrid role this year in hopes he could attack opposing quarterbacks and help stop the run. But let's assume Adams is still trying to recover from a Week 1 injury in 2022, 15 months ago. The issue is Adams hasn't been able to help in the pass rush or much against the run since 2020.

That season, Adams had 9.5 sacks and 14 quarterback hits in 12 games. He was named Second-Team All-Pro by the Associated Press. He wasn't perfect in coverage but he helped in other ways. But since 2020 in 22 games and with 621 more combined snaps than he had in 2020 alone, Adams has zero sacks and 5 quarterback hits. His quarterback rating allowed since becoming a Seahawk is 104.0.

Even a relatively healthy Adams - he will never be 100 percent healthy again, most likely - doesn't do much to help the defense. Yet Seattle reworked Adams's deal before the 2023 season and his cap hit went up for 2024. What were the Seahawks thinking? They seem to keep making mistakes when it comes to Jamal Adams.

Seattle could still release Adams this coming offseason. His cap hit in 2024 is $26,916,666 but his dead cap is $20,833,334. That is a massive chunk of dead cap, but Seattle could still save a bit over $6 million by releasing him. There is no reason the Seahawks should not make that move but Seattle appears to be blind when it comes to the safety and he likely will be back, and likely still ineffective, in 2024.

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