New York Jets strong safety Jamal Adams is facing a double-edged sword anytime he thinks about his future with Joe Douglas.
The best safety in the NFL is slated to make around $3.5 million during the 2020 NFL season. It’s a blatant piece of disrespect Jamal Adams has carried around with him for the better part of the offseason.
That disrespect represents the root cause for why the New York Jets best player officially requested a trade last month. Therefore, to think there are any positives coming from such a situation would be labeled as “wildly optimistic.”
Unless you understand the salary cap, that is. And Adams is smart enough to understand Joe Douglas’ smarts to, in turn, realize he’s now dealing in a double-edged-sword world with his general manager.
As much as he hates the idea of feeling spurned by G.M. Joe, at some level, Adams must respect the hustle.
It’s all a game. This isn’t your George Steinbrenner world that sees major dollars thrown at the best free agent in the market. Making it rain does not exist, Johnny Knoxville style—not in this league, anyway.
Every dollar dished out represents a valuable piece to a short and long-term strategy with an end goal of a chip. If this were the New York Yankees circa 2003, there’d be no argument: pay the man as soon as possible. His money doesn’t hurt the overall team strategy and talent across the depth chart.
Of course, this is the NFL, and the hard-salary cap is reality.
Douglas not jumping into the Adams extension with both feet first represents a value game that usually wins Super Bowls. And unfortunately for Adams, the safety position is the forgotten spot by way of salary defensively. Championship teams do not need to pay big-time safeties.
In 2019, the highest-paid safety was Miami Dolphins’ Reshad Jones. Everybody knows about the horrid Dolphins from a season ago. Adams ranked 14th in the league at the position in the cap hit department with a $6.07 million marker.
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