Soon after we learned that New York Jets All-Pro safety Jamal Adams requested a trade from the team Thursday afternoon, we received the safety’s wish list of preferred destinations in the form of an Adam Schefter tweet. To no surprise, the Eagles were one of those teams.
Here are the seven teams to which Jets’ Pro-Bowl safety Jamal Adams would welcome a trade, per source:
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) June 18, 2020
Ravens
The Eagles always seem to be mentioned whenever a marquee player is about to hit free agency or the trading block. There are obvious reasons Adams would want to come to a place like Philly.
Roseman and Doug Pederson have built a winning culture, making the postseason three seasons in a row; Adams has never even seen a winning season during his time with the Jets. He wants to play for a winner, who can blame him?
There are also some obvious reasons as to why the Eagles may have interest in the 24-year-old safety. For starters, he would be the perfect replacement for Malcolm Jenkins in Jim Schwartz’s secondary. The team did go out and try to mitigate Jenkins’ departure by acquiring Will Parks and K’Von Wallace, while also resigning Jalen Mills and moving him to safety. But it’s no secret none of these guys are on the same level as Adams.
Let’s not forget that Roseman’s old buddy Joe Douglas is running the show up in New York as well, so we can’t rule out the two former partners working out a fair deal.
Aside from the obvious reasons both sides should have interest in one another, how realistic is it that a deal actually gets done sometime this summer?
The main reason Adams wants out of New York — besides the fact that he wants to win — is that the front office has refused to give him a new contract. A new deal for Adams would place him among the highest paid safeties at the position, so probably in the area of $15 million per season.
As we all know by now, the Eagles are about to enter cap dystopia next offseason, as they’re slated to be about $50 million in the hole once 2021 rolls around. Adams is under contract until 2021, but he’ll be under the fifth-year option on his rookie deal, so his cap hit will shoot up to about $9 million that year.
Howie is going to need to shed a lot of the fat off this roster next offseason, and adding another potentially huge cap hit into the mix will just make matters even more difficult.
I haven’t even talked about what it would take to pry Adams away from New York either. The draft capital the Jets will want in return alone would make it not worth it. Howie’s expressed several times just how important these next few drafts will be for this team. When you don’t have the cap to sign numerous free agents every offseason, the draft is the only sustainable way to build a team.
Adams is still young enough to build around, but the Eagles won’t have the luxury of having him on a rookie deal like the Jets did.
I’d love to see Adams in midnight green just as much as the next Eagles fan, but it’s hard to envision a scenario where Howie can pull a deal off and not dig himself further into the cap hell he’s created.