Blockbuster Jamal Adams Exchanging Mutual Benefit for Seahawks and Jets | Bleach Report

David Dermer / Associated Press

It’s been a good week for sports fans, with Major League Baseball taking center stage as its shortened season begins. But even before training camp begins, the NFL has returned to the limelight, at least in Seattle and New York.

The cause was a rare event in professional soccer, for a couple of reasons. The first is that operations as large as the one that sent All-Pro safety Jamal Adams to the Pacific Northwest do not occur frequently.

The second is that it is even more unusual to see that an agreement makes so much sense to both parties.

As ESPN’s Rich Cimini reported on Saturday, the Jets and Seahawks agreed to a highly successful deal. In exchange for Adams and a fourth-round pick in 2022, the Seahawks turned in their first-round picks in both 2021 and 2022, a third round in 2021, and veteran safety Bradley McDougald.

Shortly after the trade was announced, Adams said goodbye to Jets fans on Twitter:

For Adams and the Jets, it is the culmination of a long and bitter saga that has been going on for months. It is no secret that Adams is looking for a contract extension that will not only make him one of the highest-paid insurance in the NFL, but also one of the highest-paid defensive players overall. It was also not a secret that the Jets were rumored to have been buying Adams since last season.

By Manish Mehta of the New York Daily NewsWhen Jets general manager Joe Douglas finally agreed it was time for the team and player to part ways, Adams was relieved.

“They are definitely mixed feelings. But at the end of the day, my happiness is more important. I know what I am worth. I will defend my beliefs. I will defend who I am as a person. And I will never change who I am by someone who is judging me. Either you accept me for who I am and you work with me and you support me or not. It’s okay if you don’t. “

To say that the situation had deteriorated to the point of being bitter is an understatement. Adams did not contain his feelings about the organization, either with regard to head coach Adam Gase or team owner Woody Johnson. The Jets obviously weren’t going to give him an extension averaging more than $ 20 million a season.

Something had to give.

Seth Wenig / Associated Press

For the Jets to land, the sizable amount they received from Seattle is the best case scenario in almost every sense of the term. Yes, those two first-round picks are likely to come out of the top 20. But there are a couple of them. And a Day 2 election next year. And a capable safety veteran at McDougald, who (once updated on the team’s roster) won’t leave the Jets in a bump in the back if rookie Ashtyn Davis isn’t ready for an important role early.

Was a lot for the Seahawks to surrender. But it’s easy to argue that it was worth it, because Seattle approaches the 2020 season from a very different perspective.

Seahawks general manager John Schneider is not trying to build a winner. He is trying to keep one together. Seattle headed into Week 17 last year with a chance to capture the NFC West, but a loss to the San Francisco 49ers relegated the Seahawks to wildcard status.

They knocked out the Eagles in Philly, but after the Green Bay Packers handled them in the divisional round, as the Niners advanced to the Super Bowl, it looked like we might be witnessing a power shift in the division, largely because San La defense Francisco’s was far superior.

The days of the Boom Legion are long gone. Seattle was a dying 22nd in the NFL in total defense, a paltry 27th in pass defense and tied for last in the NFC with 28 sacks.

No one was afraid of that defense. Outside star linebacker Bobby Wagner and perhaps Jadeveon Clowney (who is still unsigned), there was no differentiator. A tone maker. An impact player.

Adams is all of those things.

Last year with the Jets, Adams had 75 total tackles, 6.5 sacks, two forced fumbles and an interception on the way to his first All-Pro wink. The year before, Adams had 115 total stops, 3.5 sacks, three forced fumbles and a selection. He was named to the Pro Bowl both years, and as ESPN’s Field Yates tweeted, Adams is in a rarified air from the first three seasons of his NFL career:

Adams has not only been a puncher, either. Interceptions have not been there, but in each of the past two years, he has completed around 55 percent of the passes thrown at him, with a passer rating of around 75, by professional football benchmark. He also accumulated 19 passes defended in that period.

At the risk of committing LOBlasphemy, he is a hybrid of the great Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor, combining the athleticism and insight of Thomas’s cover and Chancellor’s punishing physique.

That doesn’t mean he’s as good as Thomas, but his 6.5 sacks in 2019 would have led the Seahawks: 2.5.

That is a real statistic.

Adam Hunger / Associated Press

Now, good feelings in the Emerald City can only last that long. Adams is out of New York and with a contender, and landed with one of the teams on his commercial “wish list”. But one wish remains unfulfilled: that $ 20 million per season deal.

But that is a problem for another day. For now, a winning Seahawks team has now added possibly the best safety in the NFL to a defense that desperately needed to pop. On the flip side of that coin, the Jets got rid of what had become an increasingly unpleasant situation: the kind of distraction a young team surely doesn’t need.

They also got the kind of ride that could accelerate their return to contention in the AFC East. That wouldn’t come in 2020, but that first extra could be a huge boost in 2021.

Such big exchanges in the NFL don’t come every day. Operations so large that they work so well for both teams are even less common.

It marks both boxes.

Well, it has been a strange year.