Seattle Seahawks free agents have had an odd run in recent years, especially those who didn’t re-sign with the team. While Seattle has not been a terrible team at any point in the last 15 years, many times, the players leaving the organization have a difficult time finding homes.
That is the case even if the player has had high-end success previously. Safety Quandre Diggs was a multi-time Pro Bowler with Seattle, but was released in March 2024 and eventually found a home with the Tennessee Titans in August. The same happened with fellow safety Jamal Adams.
Both players are free agents again, but Diggs is 32 years old, and that is a bit long in the tooth for a free safety who relies on outright speed and quickness in coverage. That he hasn’t signed somewhere is not surprising. Adams is a different story.
Former Seattle Seahawks safety Jamal Adams is likely looking at life after football
While it might seem as if Adams has spent 15 years in the league, the oft-injured safety was drafted in 2017, and he is still only 29 years old. One would think another team might take a chance on him, but he might be closer to forced retirement than agreeing to a contract with someone. There are several reasons for this.
The most obvious one is that Jamal Adams simply cannot stay healthy. Why would a team waste any money on a player who is rarely available? He has played only two full seasons in his career, and those were in his first two seasons of 2018 and 2019. Since 2022, he has appeared in just 15 games.
Another reason Adams is unlikely to find a home is that he plays a position that requires him to be somewhat decent in coverage. He isn’t. Since 2020, he has had a passer rating allowed of a paltry 104.7 or more in three of five seasons. In one of the seasons where he had a lower passer rating allowed (2022), he played only one game.
One of the parts of Adams’ game that made him special was his ability to blitz and pressure quarterbacks. In his first season with the Seahawks (2020), he had 9.5 sacks and 14 quarterback hits. Since then, he has zero sacks and five quarterback hits. Injuries have robbed him of his explosiveness.
There could be an NFL team that wants to acquire him and turn him into more of an edge rusher, but why? He doesn’t have the quickness and speed he once did, and he would be more in line to get blocked by much bigger players. The chances of him staying healthy are slim.
More likely, Jamal Adams, at just 29 years old, needs to start thinking full-time about a life after football. He certainly won’t be coming back to the Seattle Seahawks, and he won’t with Pete Carroll and the Las Vegas Raiders. Adams might not have any other team that even thinks of signing him.
