The New York Jets agreed to trade discontent Jamal Adams with the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday, with Seattle sending New York veteran Bradley McDougald, first-round picks in 2021 and 2022, and a third-round pick in 2021 for Adams and a quarter. – round selection in 2022.
To see what kind of transportation the Jets can get next April, check out our updated Sketch Simulator.
I wrote about Adams a couple of weeks ago, with Seattle cited as one of the teams that could benefit from acquiring its top-notch talent. There is ample evidence that Adams is not only a great player in himself (winning the second most win over replacement since he entered the league in 2017), but he is also one of the defenders who is a force multiplier for the rest of the defense, helping lower level players reach higher heights than they were otherwise capable of. The Jets’ defense in 2019 was fifth in yards per allowed play and 13 in net yards per pass attempt allowed, with the deep center of the field almost uninhabitable by opposing offenses (h / t Timo Riske for his brilliant heatmap):
The Seahawks could certainly use a player of Adams’ caliber, as they were 29 yards per play defensively allowed during the regular season and 22 points allowed. They were one of the worst pass defenses in the entire league (23 in net yards per pass attempt). Only one of his defensive backs rushed the passer over 20 times last season (McDougald, 22), while Adams led all assurances with 25 pressures in 101 total pass snapshots. Adams is the second security they’ve acquired through trade in the past 12 months, joining former Detroit Lion Quandre Diggs (0.225 WAR in 439 snapshots as Seahawk).
Seattle was 19th in the NFL in total WAR generated by defensive players, but after (presumably) losing to Jadeveon Clowney (0.17 WAR) and with the status of newly acquired Quinton Dunbar (0.45) in the air, the former Safety Jets did. will do. They need a team with Bobby Wagner (who fell back a bit in 2019) to dramatically improve a defense that put a lot of pressure on Russell Wilson and the luck of making the playoffs last year (they only had +7 on the points differential during the season. regular).
Schematically, Adams will not enter and will simply become Kam’s new chancellor. The Seahawks have evolved due to the loss of Earl Thomas rather than the loss of Chancellor. Instead of sitting back and letting Thomas control the center of the field in his Cover 1 and Cover 3 schemes, they have evolved to show more two-tier security looks. From 2015 to 2017, the Seahawks only played double-height schemes 12% of the time. That number has increased as much as 28% in the past two regular seasons. Last season, they were at 31%. This meant that Chancellor’s replacement and now Jet, McDougald, played as a much more safety half of the field than Chancellor. The chancellor played the midfield role only about 37 times a year during his past three years in Seattle and most of them were on a third chance. McDougald played 286 times overall in the past two seasons.
McDougald struggled in this role, posting a low coverage rating of 51.4 in 2019. This is where bringing Adams in will reap the most benefits. In the past two seasons, she has been without light in this role for the Jets as she arrives in Seattle with a coverage rating of 88.8. Her ability to play with flat feet and drive on breakout routes from the slot is tremendous. It’s also a fantastic late plugin in the running game, sniffing lanes of clipping and suppressing what would otherwise have been long runs.
Despite what Adams brings to the table as a player, the Jets come out of this trade as the winner. After swapping the farm to climb three places with Indianapolis to recruit Sam Darnold in 2018 and leave the closet bare for him in later seasons, they are in a position to have to return to the well in 2020 at the intended position. to two largely disappointing seasons of USC’s product. In a draft class that includes Justin Fields and Trevor Lawrence at the top (see here for our newly released big board) and a total of 6.5 wins in FanDuel SportsbookThe Jets are now in a prime position to do what the Bears couldn’t when they traded two firsts for Khalil Mack and what the Los Angeles Rams now can’t do after trading two firsts for Jalen Ramsey: make a real trade in the quarterback if his current starter doesn’t work.
The situation Chicago is currently experiencing is probably not the one the Seahawks will face, despite the Adams overpayment (in my opinion, it was worth a first round, not two). Wilson is only one level behind Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City, one of the rare cases where a quarterback can lift those around him enough to justify such a large contract. Adams should give the Seahawks defense a boost in 2020 and beyond, and given his ability to improve those around him on his side of the ball, he’s likely to slow down future loss of draft picks in some way. It’s almost impossible for any non-quarterback to be worth multiple players, though, and while Adams gave the Jets great value during their first three years in the league, it probably spawned more in packing their bags for the Emerald City.
