Jamal Adams has feast with three sacks
Jets safety Jamal Adams reacts after a sack of Redskins quarterback Dwayne Haskins during the first half at FedExField in Landover, Md., on Sunday. Credit: EPA-EFE/Shutterstock/Erik S. Lesser
LANDOVER, Md. — Jamal Adams thought back for a moment to his rookie season in 2017 and laughed. Just a few minutes after producing the first three-sack game of his career in the Jets’ 34-17 win over the Redskins, Adams realized just how far he has come in a relatively short period of time.
“My rookie year, I was all over the place, doing crazy things,” Adams said. “Last year, I was feeling it a little different than my rookie year.”
And now?
“Obviously, the game has slowed down,” said Adams, who had two sacks in last week’s 34-27 win over the Giants and earned his first AFC Defensive Player of the Week award. “I’m just taking coaching and I’m applying it to the field, because those guys are putting us in the right position to make plays.”
Adams has six sacks for the season, already better than his previous career high of 3 ½ in 2018. He had two sacks as a rookie and, despite his post-game description of being “all over the place” as a rookie, he was highly regarded around the league after coming to the Jets as the No. 6 overall pick.
Adams now owns the Jets’ single-season record for most sacks by a defensive back and is two sacks behind former Cardinals safety Adrian Wilson for most sacks by a defensive back in NFL history.
He has just one interception so far this season.
“The picks are not coming my way, so I thought I’d do something different.”
Adams has feasted on rookie quarterbacks in back-to-back weeks, dropping Giants passer Daniel Jones twice before getting the hat trick against Haskins.
On one of his sacks, he appeared to get to Haskins at the same time as linebacker Jordan Jenkins, but Adams was awarded the stat. Jenkins playfully reminded Adams that the safety may not have deserved that one, or at least it should have been a shared sack.
“He’s been upset for two weeks,” Adams cracked.
It has been the best two-game sequence for Adams, and it has come not long after he expressed dissatisfaction that the Jets had spoken with other teams interested in trading for him late last month. Adams was convinced the Jets were shopping him, but general manager Joe Douglas maintained that he was simply taking other teams’ calls. The two eventually talked it out, leaving Adams satisfied that he is still considered a valuable member of the Jets’ roster.
He has certainly played that way the last two games. He was flying around during the win over the Giants and did one better on the stat sheet against the Redskins.
“We did a great job of holding our looks on certain things and showing [Haskins] different types of blitzes,” he said. “Credit goes to the guys up front, because they did a lot of work that people don’t really see.”
Adams wasn’t happy at giving up two touchdowns late in the game, even though the Redskins didn’t have a realistic chance of catching the Jets.
“We definitely played our defensive brand of football,” he said. “We did a great job the majority of the game. I don’t like the way we finished. I feel like we shouldn’t have given up those points. At the end of the day we did get the win, but we definitely got to clean those things up.”
Bob Glauber retired in 2022 after covering the NFL for nearly 40 years. He was selected in 2021 for the Bill Nunn Career Achievement Award by the Pro Football Writers of America, and is a three-time winner of the New York State Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. President of the PFWA for the 2018-20 seasons, he is the author of “The Forgotten First” and “Guts and Genius.”
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