Brandan and I reflected on the Jamal Adams trade for nearly an hour — check it out below. And if you missed my article discussing the compensation involved and what the deal says about the Seahawks’ current situation, click here.
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Rob Staton
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Hot topics
- Video: Some ideas to try and fix the Seahawks offensive line
- My blueprint for the Seahawks 2025 off-season
- Curtis Allen: Thinking outside the box on the Seahawks’ quarterback situation
- Identifying zone blocking offensive linemen for the Seahawks under Klint Kubiak
- Live stream with Jeff Simmons at 2pm PT
Still, Adams opening up to the Daily News is not what got him traded. According to sources, the Jets and Seahawks had been going back and forth for quite some time regarding the safety. This type of deal isn’t pieced together in a day. What really got this closer to the finish line was the NFL and NFLPA agreeing to the future landscape of the salary cap. Not from the Jets’ point of view, but the Seahawks. Seattle needed concrete evidence of what the 2020 – and 2021-2024 salary cap – would look like before finalizing any Adams addition
No they didn’t.
They have masses of cap space in the next few years. This trade could’ve been done in March, easily. Not to mention plenty of other franchises have spent money, including the Chiefs in recent weeks.
The fact that this wasn’t done until days before camp starts for the one player we all knew was available is why it smacks of doing ‘something’ to make up for a bad off-season.
This is from a NYJets reporter who writes from the athletic
John Schneider hates the first round of the draft
Let’s talk about the value of the picks the Seahawks gave up and assume that we will pick at 24 for the next two seasons.
The first round picks in ‘21 and ’22 and the third rounder in ’21 have about the same value as pick 10 in ’21.
So you actually get Adams in ’20 for pick 10 in ’21.
I’m fine with that, even more so with the ’21 draft probably being a lot more erratic, which becomes clearer evry day the pandemic rages in the US.
I’ve read a couple of these approaches that use the draft chart value to evaluate the trade. While it certainly does add perspective to the discussion, I feel that it leaves out the fact that when you draft someone at R1P10, for example, you get that player under cheap club control for 4-5 years. Each year that passes of the rookie deal, that asset depreciates.
So getting Adams at the beginning of his rookie deal is different than getting him now, when he likely plays for just one more season on that deal before demanding to be the top-paid safety in the league, and because of the haul we invested to trade for him, he will have all the leverage in the world.
I have also seen several people bring up that 2021 will be an erratic draft, so teams shouldn’t value draft picks as highly this year. While true that it will be different, I think that should actually be seen as an opportunity by well-run franchises: those who really know how to scout and coach up players might be able to find more talented players who will fall to them that ordinarily would not have if they had played out their full final college season and showed off their talents for all teams to easily see.
Definitely agree that the second best part of drafting that high is getting cost control for 5 years. The BEST part is that you get a shot at a true game-changing player with decent odds of it working out.
Still, those picks are no sure thing when the guys get to the league. Look at that 2017 top 10:
Amazing: Miles Garrett, Jamal Adams, CMC, Mahomes
Meh: Fournette, Mike Williams
Borderline Trash: Trubisky, Solomon Thomas, Corey Davis, John Ross
Less than 50% chance you even hit paydirt on a top 10 pick (that year). Most (not all) draft classes are like this and the odds decrease exponentially the further you go down the 1st round.
At least we know that we’re getting a stud.
Does it feel like a panicky move that lacks a quality vision, like the rest of the off-season? You’ll get no argument from me there.
Despite it possibly being an overpay at a position that didn’t seem like a need, I’m forced to say that this is my favorite move of the off-season. Free agency and the draft were pretty deflating in my opinion.
Any possibility that Diggs plays the nickle (which he has done before right?) and Blair plays FS? That would certainly create a lot of boom in the backfield.
Either way I wouldn’t say this trade necessarily means the Blair pick was a wasted one, he should still have plenty of opportunities to play a role of some kind.
It would be insane to move Diggs to the nickel, given how well he played at free safety.
See, this is interesting to me how convinced Nagy is that Blair will play FS for us.
He was even questioned on it in the comments:
(Oops, that last part is not meant to be part of the tweet.)
It would be a massive waste moving Diggs to nickel. I just can’t see it.
The guy played lights out at free safety. Moving him to nickel to shoe-horn Blair at free safety would be madness.
Rob, during the Draft process you brought up the idea of trading up in the draft for Isaiah Simmons, an idea that I really liked. The price would have been probably two first rounders as well (#27 in 2020 and our 1st in 2021). Obviously Simmons is almost three years younger and would have come much cheaper over the next five years, but Adams is much more experienced and proven.
Could you give a short insight on why you think drafting Simmons would have been worth the price but trading for Adams is not? Is it because of the money, those two players or the way this summer has turned out with all their holes on the DLine?
Of course there still is work to do on the DLine (at least one DT plus maybe Griffin?) but the Adams trade still allows you some cheap additions.
Well for starters, I wrote that article before free agency with the assumption they were going to fix the pass rush. If you’d said to me before I started writing… ‘Rob do you think they should sign Benson Mayowa and Bruce Irvin, not keep Clowney and then rely on trading up for Isaiah Simmons’ — my response would’ve included swear words.
But also, seeing as we’re comparing them, Simmons and Adams are completely different players. There’s almost no comparison in terms of what they are. Simmons ran a 4.39 at 6-4 and 238lbs. He jumped a 39 inch vertical and an 11-0 broad. His physical profile is even more freaky than D.K. Metcalf.
He won the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker.
In his final year at Clemson he recorded 102 tackles, 16 TFL’s, eight sacks, three interceptions and nine PBU’s.
It was a pitch to have a player who can pretty much do anything. He was the ultra modern day defender. Whether it was rushing the passer, legitimately, matching up with George Kittle, playing in space with ease — we’ve never seen anyone like Simmons before.
Jamal Adams, as good as he is — he’s a safety. He’s about 210lbs and runs a 4.56. He’s going to play almost exclusively strong safety in Seattle. He’s a very different prospect to Simmons. That doesn’t mean he can’t have an impact or be a great player in Seattle. They are just different.
Thanks a lot for the quick respond! I’m very exited to see how Adams in Seattle and Simmons turn out, that’s for sure.
Here for this Twitter beef…
https://twitter.com/LeVeonBell/status/1287216413787250689
Well, he looks bummed out to be out of NY… 😉
https://twitter.com/MasterTes/status/1287177147258462209
Nominated! Love these podcasts.