Should Seahawks Re-sign Jamal Adams to Play Linebacker?

Without a new team after being released last month, Jamal Adams remains available to return to the Seahawks, but a position change would be a questionable reason for bringing him back.

Oct 22, 2023; Seattle, Washington, USA; Seattle Seahawks safety Jamal Adams (33) dives for Arizona / Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

As part of a substantial salary cap-creating roster purge, the Seattle Seahawks moved on from oft-injured safety Jamal Adams earlier this month, bringing an end to a tumultuous four-year stint with the franchise after being acquired in a failed blockbuster trade.

But after signing veteran safeties Rayshawn Jenkins and K'Von Wallace in free agency, while former teammate Quandre Diggs likely won't return as a result of those additions, Seattle may still have the door slightly cracked open for Adams to come back as a linebacker. Known for his skills playing in the box near the line of scrimmage and rushing the quarterback, general manager John Schneider stated that he thinks he could play the position during an interview with Dave Wyman and Bob Stelton on Seattle Sports 710 on Thursday.

“Yeah, I mean when we acquired him that’s what we were thinking, [weakside] linebacker,’’ Schneider said.

Though Schneider entertained the idea Adams could slide up to linebacker full time and seemed on board with the idea he could make the transition, he didn't delve any further into the possibility of the Seahawks re-signing him to help offset the offseason departures of Bobby Wagner, Jordyn Brooks, and Devin Bush in the middle. And, for those hoping to see a reunion, there are plenty of reasons why bringing him back in that capacity seems unlikely, if not impossible.

For one, since the start of free agency, Seattle has signed former Dolphins starter Jerome Baker and Bills defender Tyrel Dodson to one-year deals with the expectation those two AFC East defectors would jump into the starting lineup in place of Wagner and Brooks in new coach Mike Macdonald's scheme. Both players are younger than Adams, offer extensive experience playing MIKE and WILL spots dating back to college, and have been far healthier in their respective NFL careers to this point.

A six-year starter previously at Miami, Baker has 22.5 career sacks on his resume, offering similar blitzing prowess to Adams while weighing nearly 20 more pounds. Additionally, he has five career interceptions and has been a productive run defender since coming out of Ohio State, averaging north of 100 tackles per season from 2019 to 2022 before seeing a slight dip in numbers last year while sitting out four games due to injury.

Despite only starting five games in his first four NFL seasons with the Bills, Dodson flashed in 10 starts last season stepping in for Matt Milano, tallying 74 tackles, 2.5 sacks, and eight tackles for loss in his first extended regular season action. Posting a pressure rate north of 25 percent as a blitzer and finding his way into the backfield with high frequency, he was even more disruptive than his new teammate in an albeit smaller sample size.

Per Schneider, the Seahawks plan to start Baker at weakside linebacker, while the 237-pound Dodson will get his first crack at being a full-time starter at MIKE as a replacement for Wagner. But with both players having prior experience sporting the green dot as on-field play callers, he has confidence they could play either position if needed.

Away from Seattle's two new additions and the return of special teams ace Jon Rhattigan, Adams lacks the prototypical build of an NFL linebacker and carries an injury history longer than a grocery store list for a family of 10. At just 213 pounds, calling him undersized would be an understatement, and he missed nearly 30 regular season games in four seasons with the organization due to a pair of torn shoulder labrums, fused fingers, and a torn quad tendon that all required surgeries over the past three years.

If Adams couldn't stay on the field while logging over 850 snaps in the box as a strong safety since 2020, it's hard to envision him holding up physically playing an even higher snap percentage near the line of scrimmage where he would be asked to take on blocks and rush more often.

Beyond his size limitations and durability concerns, Adams looked like a shell of his former self last year when he was healthy enough to play, regularly taking poor pursuit angles and failing to make much of an impact as a blitzer. He also made several questionable choices off the field, including getting into a verbal altercation with an independent neurologist on the sidelines and foolishly belittling a reporter and his wife on social media, casting questions about his fit in the locker room as a new coaching staff aims to maintain a strong culture.

Still unsigned several weeks after being released as a cap casualty, Adams may have to wait until after the 2024 NFL Draft before a team takes a chance on him. At that stage, after earning $50 million from the Seahawks, he will likely have to settle for a deal with few guarantees and chocked full of incentives if he intends to continue playing.

Given his All-Pro pedigree and the fact he will have another full offseason to continue strengthening his knee without recovering from any new procedures, Adams may make sense for several teams to take a flier on with hopes he can finally stay healthy and resurrect his career. If that happens, it would be a great comeback story for a player who has dealt with an incredible amount of adversity over the last three-plus years and simply wants to play football again without further injuries.

But after parting ways with Adams' massive contract, absorbing a $10 million dead cap hit, and signing two replacements in the secondary, the Seahawks shouldn't be that team. It's well past time for the two sides to go their separate ways, especially if re-signing him revolves around moving him to a position that doesn't look to be a good fit for more than a situational sub-package role and already has two newly-signed starters in place.