Will Seahawks’ Jamal Adams make noise instead of signing extension?

It’s nearly June, and a very important piece of the Seahawks’ offseason has yet to happen. Star strong safety Jamal Adams has not been signed to a contract extension.

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The Seahawks aren’t just expected to sign Adams to a long-term extension before the 2021 season, which is his last under his current contract. They pretty much need to in order to justify the steep price they paid to acquire him prior to last season.

Seattle sent the New York Jets their first- and third-round picks in the 2021 NFL Draft, their 2022 first-round pick and safety Bradley McDougald last July, getting Adams and a 2022 fouth–round selection in return. And while Adams had a fantastic first season with the Hawks, setting the single-season record for sacks by a defensive back with 9.5 in just 12 games, the haul Seattle shipped to New York for him is the kind you only part with if you’re planning to build around the player you get out of it.

And yet it’s been pretty quiet when it comes to reports about a possible extension between the two sides. So what’s going on?

This week, 710 ESPN Seattle’s two resident quarterbacks, Brock Huard and Jake Heaps, shared their perspectives on the situation. Let’s dive into them.

Huard: Adams’ side must be leveraging time

On the latest edition of the Brock and Salk Podcast, which comes out weekly each Tuesday, Huard said he thinks Adams’ side is trying to get more out of the Seahawks than the team’s initial offer. And he doesn’t think that’s going to pay off.

“For some reason, Jamal Adams and his team and others that are involved in this think the Seahawks are going to up their offer,” he said. “They must believe that they’re going to use time as leverage and the Seahawks are going to change the terms of the deal, and the Seahawks are not going to do that.”

That’s because the Seahawks have established during the tenures of general manager John Schneider and head coach Pete Carroll, which date back to 2010, that their first offer when they try to extend players is always the best they’re willing to put forth, according to Huard.

“They did not (change their extension offer) with Bobby Wagner, they did not do that with Russell Wilson. They did not restructure the way that they do their deals, and I think you say very clearly to Jamal, ‘This is just not the way we do things here. We will give you an extension just as we did to Bobby and just as we did to Russell, just as we’ve done to Richard (Sherman) and Earl (Thomas) and everybody through the years, and we’ll make you the highest-paid at your position. Here’s the deal and it’s a very fair deal, and either you’re going to take or it’s not going to change.’ It’s just simply not going to change.”

That led to Huard’s co-host, Mike Salk, asking the next logical question: How does that end?

“It more than likely is going to end with Jamal accepting that deal,” Huard responded, “but I don’t know if it’s his agent saving face, I don’t know if it’s family that’s involved in the negotiation that are going to try to save face. I don’t know if they’re going to try to use time as a little bit of a lever of sneaking a detail or two in that they want, some workaround or some other incentive or who knows, that they can look to have some sort of win. But we know this – the terms of these deals, this is the structure of it, and Jamal Adams will not break that structure. If Russell Wilson could not break that structure, Jamal Adams is not going to break the structure of the way they do their deals.”

That leaves open the possibility of things getting messy. The Seahawks had another star strong safety who wanted more than the team was willing to give him: Kam Chancellor. He ended up holding out into the early weeks of the 2015 season but returned without the restructured contract he had been looking for.

“Is Jamal Adams eventually going to make some noise as we get near training camp? Is he going to miss mandatory minicamp?” asked Huard.

“It sure seems like it,” Salk responded.

Whether or not things end up going down that road, Huard feels confident nothing is changing Seattle’s offer.

“How does this all shape up? (Adams’ camp) is trying to leverage time and I don’t think that is beneficial because I just feel so strongly based on history that the Seahawks have their deal in place and that deal is not going to change whether Jamal Adams signs it May 26 or whether he decides to sign it July 26.”

You can hear the full conversation during the Blue 88 segment from the Brock and Salk Podcast at this link or in the player below.

Heaps: This will turn out like Seahawks’ deal with Wagner

The fact that Adams doesn’t have a new contract at this point is strange to Heaps, but he also thinks there is precedent for the wait, as he told his co-host, Stacy Rost, Thursday on 710 ESPN Seattle’s Jake and Stacy.

Heaps was asked if fans should be expecting an Adams extension to happen any time now, and he was clear in his response.

“To answer this very quickly and bluntly: No, do not be waiting for a Jamal Adams deal to be done any time, any minute, right this second. I think that this is going to play itself out throughout the summer,” he said.

While Russell Wilson’s most recent extension happened pretty early in the offseason back in 2019, that was out of the norm as he set a deadline for the team. Wagner, meanwhile, inked his most recent contract a few months later during training camp in July 2019 without much hoopla beforehand.

Heaps sees similarities between that situation and this one with Adams.

“I’ve been very surprised to see how quiet this has been. I was anticipating Jamal Adams conversation being more like it was with Russell Wilson (in 2019) than it was Bobby Wagner. Remember, Bobby Wagner, we didn’t hear a peep about how the contract negotiations were going, what the numbers looked like, any of that stuff. And Jamal Adams, it’s been very much the same thing at this point in time. I would anticipate that Jamal Adams’ deal won’t get done until just before training camp.”

You can hear Heaps’ full thoughts in the Four-Down Territory segment of Jake and Stacy in the podcast at this link or in the player below.

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