Could Jamal Adams return to Seahawks? Huard thinks so — as LB

Mar 20, 2024, 12:13 PM

Seattle Seahawks safety Jamal Adams warms up before a game against the New York Giants. (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

(Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

Seattle Sports

The Seattle Seahawks have signed more outside additions to the roster this offseason than they have re-signed their own free agents. Are there any remaining players who could ultimately return to the Hawks in 2024?

Seattle Seahawks Offseason Tracker: Free agency and more

Former NFL quarterback Brock Huard thinks so, and boy is it an interesting one.

“It’s not (safety) Quandre (Diggs),” Huard said. “… I don’t think Quandre is going to be back here.”

It is a safety, though. At least, in a way.

“There’s still some possibility maybe at linebacker (with) Jamal Adams,” Huard said.

Adams, 28, was released a week before free agency and remains unsigned.

The former No. 6 overall pick has been a safety for his entire career, but much of Adams’ best play has been close to the line of scrimmage playing the run or blitzing the quarterback. The Seahawks’ linebacker room will look much different this year as 2023 starters Jordyn Brooks and Bobby Wagner are gone and Seattle signed Tyrel Dodson and Jerome Baker to one-year deals.

Huard: What Seahawks’ new LBs do better than Wagner, Brooks

“Jamal Adams back as a linebacker only? Is that outside the realm of possibility with a new staff and a new regime?” Huard asked.

Adams’ former head coach in Seattle, Pete Carroll, is no longer with the team. Instead, the Seahawks’ new head coach is Mike Macdonald, the former defensive coordinator in Baltimore.

“If there’s really nobody else out there in this market that’s willing to take a swing (on Adams), we know Mike Macdonald in his past has taken swings at veteran guys and gotten a lot of production out of them,” Huard added.

The Seahawks traded two first-round picks and a third-round pick for Adams ahead of the 2020 season after he earned two All-Pro nods with the New York Jets. Adams was a second-team All-Pro in his first year with the Seahawks as he recorded 9.5 sacks and 11 tackles for loss despite missing four games.

After that season, Adams and the Seahawks agreed to a four-year deal worth up to $72 million, which made him the highest-paid safety in NFL history at the time. But injuries soon piled up for Adams, who missed five games in 2021, then 16 of 17 games in 2022 and eight games in 2023. When he was cut, Adams had two years left on his contract, and the Seahawks are eating a big dead cap hit for 2024 as a result.

“They certainly know that body over the last four years and the injury history associated with it,” Huard said. ” … As you get closer to and through OTAs and everything else, not as a safety (because) safety is accounted for … but linebacker is still in question. And in this draft if you don’t find a linebacker and Jamal Adams is still out there and unsigned and is willing to play that, I don’t think that’s 100% off the table.”

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