More than 18 months after becoming eligible for an extension, Jamal Adams finally signed one. After initially balking at the Seahawks’ four-year, $70MM offer, the All-Pro safety agreed to terms and began practicing for the first time since January.
Adams’ $17.5MM-per-year deal both makes him the NFL’s highest-paid safety by more than $2MM annually and keeps Bobby Wagner as Seattle’s highest-paid defensive player, which the team wanted. More information has come out on Adams’ extension, which ended months-long negotiations and stopped this saga from heading toward a franchise tag.
The Seahawks threatened to rescind their offer to Adams if he did not take it now, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports. While the team did not threaten discipline for Adams holding in and skipping drills, some hardball took place. But the historically effective blitzer has his long-term deal, with Florio adding some unspecified “cosmetics” are also included, and is signed through 2025.
After news of the 25-year-old defender’s brief stalemate surfaced, a conversation with his mother late Monday night appears to have accelerated his timetable.
“I wasn’t not going to take the contract,” Adams said, via PFT’s Charean Williams. “Where I’m from, we’re definitely taking that, man. Mom called. She called twice, and when mom called, and she told me I needed to take the contract. It was a no-brainer. Mama knows best.”
Adams’ extension includes just $21MM guaranteed at signing, but that figure bumps up to $35.44MM five days after Super Bowl LVI, according to CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones (Twitter links). With the Seahawks almost certainly not bailing on this contract by then, Adams’ effective full guarantee leads all safeties.
While the safety market hit an interesting lull in 2018, a bevy of deals in the $14MM AAV neighborhood from 2019-20 restored it. Justin Simmons‘ second franchise tag led to the Broncos Pro Bowl defender moving the market north of $15MM on average earlier this year, and Adams has taken it to a new place. The Seahawks can now move on to their Duane Brown issue, though the team does not exactly want to hand its soon-to-be 36-year-old left tackle a new contract this year.
Give it a year when someone signs one higher and he holds out for another contract…..
Blah blah blah.
Highest paid safety (ever) by $2m/yr?! Thanks for Fcking up the entire safety market Seattle. There’s always THAT team. So, based on this contract..I’m lead to believe he’s the best safety to ever play…HA! He’s not the best current safety (and no I’m not saying he isn’t very good, learn to read).
If u want to point fingers then don’t point it at Seattle , point it at the world football league as they are the reason why NFL players are vastly over paid by millions of dollars.
They are the league that wanted to be bigger then the NFL and thought if they over paid by a ton they would take tons of NFL players away from the NFL . They took a lot but they just didn’t do their due diligence with finances and had to close up shop pretty quickly.
The WFL signed a couple of high profile players from the champion Dolphins for big money then proceeded to go bankrupt. The NFL owners have always been their own worst enemy primarily because they are poor students of history and keep repeating the same mistakes.
Why do you care how much these players are being paid? The owners are making gobs of money. The players salaries should probably be even higher.
Out of curiosity, who is the best safety currently? Adams seems on that level
He’s probably the best box safety. Not sure how he rates in coverage, but I know he’s not exactly a “center-field” type of safety.
Off the top of my head…Justin Simmons, Harrison Smith, Derwin James, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Tyrann Mathieu are just a couple of guys who I think are better (or atleast contribute more around the field) than Adams.
Derwin James has barely even been able to play in the NFL because of injuries..
I’d leave Derwin off for now as well.
When healthy he’s possibly better. The issue is he hasn’t been healthy. He’s got more INTs in 21 games than Adams has in 58 but then you get into the fact that Adams is probably better in the box but if you’re taking a safety and putting him on just one spot, I don’t see how he’s better than the guy who can play up and down. It’s why Mathieu and Smith and Simmons are better in my opinion. Minkah is probably the best ball hawk of that group but I don’t think he’s a run defender or box guy like the others. Derwin is probably behind all of them right now and a lot of it is based on health. Can’t rate him higher if he can’t show it.
Your list kind of exposes your bias.
So much for not willing to extend huh
People love to hate on Jamal. Can’t wait to see what kind of year he has. Have a feeling he will silence the haters.
Honestly he probably does the same as last year. He’ll probably be Seattle’s best pass rusher and probably not be a huge threat in the pass coverage game.
If being good or better in coverage is his game then he’s chosen to hide it for four years. You see flashes that make you think, maybe. But I think he’ll probably just be the pass rusher from the middle of the defense. Honestly if they alternated Bobby and him with coverage that might not be awful but…Bobby’s best ability is being able to run with slot WRs. Idk if you take that away.
He’s a SS dude. Kam Chancellor was no lockdown safety either. Plus Adams had a shoulder injury that didn’t allow him to lift his arm above his head last season. You go cover NFL WRs with one arm, get 9 1/2 sacks, have offseason surgery, then listen to everyone tell you, you can’t cover.
I’d be ready to set the league on fire this year if I were him.