RENTON — Jamal Adams remains on the Seahawks active roster, with coach Pete Carroll saying Wednesday that he is still investigating the best course of action after suffering a knee injury involving his quadriceps tendon in Monday’s 17-16 win over Denver.
“He’s getting all the information he can right now to make sure that he knows what’s next, from our guys and then from other people as well,” Carroll said. “We have time to do that, so he’s going to take the time to do it right and have his mind really clear on what’s the next step.”
But if the specifics of what is next Adams remain uncertain, what isn’t is that the team is preparing for him to miss significant time, if not the rest of the season.
And into that void steps a player who Wednesday revealed that a few months ago he was ready to give up football — Josh Jones, who will take over Adams’ starting spot at safety alongside Quandre Diggs for as long as Adams is sidelined.
The 27-year-old Jones entered the league as a second-round pick of the Packers in 2017 out of North Carolina State and started 12 games for Green Bay over the next two seasons.
But disagreements over playing time, as well as dealing with a hyperactive thyroid, led to Jones’ exit from Green Bay, which then kicked off a merry-go-round of NFL stops — six games with the Cowboys in 2019, 13 with Jacksonville in 2020, six with the Colts in 2021 and then ending the season in Seattle, where he played in the final four games of 2021.
And after becoming a free agent following Seattle’s final game Jan. 9 at Arizona, Jones considered moving on from football.
One reason is that Jones’ three kids reside in the Atlanta area, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to spend another season away from them chasing an NFL career that had too often proven disappointing.
“All those things were going through my head, like, ‘Man, I’m just tired of everything,’ and my career hasn’t gone how I wanted it to go,” Jones said. “I was like, ‘I might be done.’”
But then in mid-April, roughly two weeks before the NFL draft, Jones said Carroll gave him a call and asked him what was going on — the Seahawks had already extended an offer for him to sign.
Carroll had actually already made it clear to Jones in January that the Seahawks considered him part of their long-range plans. Jones said he and Carroll talked in Arizona the night before the season finale in which Jones started in place of Ryan Neal (who was on the COVID-19 list). Jones made 10 tackles in the 38-30 win.
“We sat down that night before the [Arizona] game and talked about mapping out this future, because he just looks like he should be part of what we’re doing,” Carroll said. “And he hadn’t had much success up until then, and I don’t think he really believed what I was telling him because I was telling him he was going to be a big part of what was going on. And he was hesitant to accept that.”
But when Carroll called again in April and the two talked, Jones said he finally began to come around to feeling he still had an NFL future with the Seahawks. Jones said the call from Carroll was “the sign right there” that he should keep playing.
“To be honest, the reason why I’m here is because of Pete,” Jones said. “… He said nothing is guaranteed and I’ll have to work for everything. But those conversations hit home and just made me think, ‘OK, I’ve got to do this.’”
Jones finally signed May 3, just after the draft, at which point he said he fully committed to football, saying he was “as disciplined” as he’d ever been about working out and staying in shape.
“He made a big decision this offseason to really go for it,” Carroll said. “And we’ve seen great results, and he’s having a blast.”
Jones also readily admits now he helped contribute to some of what happened earlier in his career.
Jones was released by Green Bay before the cutdown to 53 in 2019, after he had skipped OTAs and mandatory minicamp in part because he was upset over being relegated to backup status.
“I think fit is not only your ability on the field, but in the organization as a whole,” Green Bay general manager Brian Gutekunst said when Jones was released. “We wish him well. I’m fond of Josh, and I think he’s going to have a bright career in front of him. It’ll be interesting where he ends up.”
Jones was also dealing with hyperthyroidism — he was waived at the time with a non-football illness designation — which can result in fatigue. Jones later had the thyroid removed.
“The thyroid, that played a huge role,” Jones said. “No one really knew what I was dealing with in Green Bay. I didn’t really speak on that. I kind of just went through it. That played a huge role in everything. But I feel great. I got it removed a year ago, so body-wise I’m connected in all areas.”
Jones said of his time in Green Bay that “there’s a reason why I went through that. … I had to mature from the neck up and look myself in the mirror and just change some things and know when you want to point the finger just not point the finger and just go out there and take and earn everything.”
Once back with the Seahawks, he did just that, quickly emerging as the third safety behind Adams and Diggs and playing so well that the team devised packages in which he was used as a third safety with Adams essentially becoming a linebacker. Jones was on the field as a third safety on the play in which Adams was injured.
“He had a great camp,” Carroll said of Jones, who had seven tackles against Denver in relief of Adams. “He had the most turnovers, the most big plays, the most big hits of all the guys and so you saw him in the rotations already.”
Now, Jones will become a leading man.
And if the circumstances of becoming a starter are far from ideal, Jones promises to embrace the opportunity.
“I’m just grateful that I didn’t pull the plug on myself and just call it quits,” he said. “I’m thankful for that.”