Veteran defender Jamal Adams joined the Vikings not long before the opening of training camp. On Wednesday, he spoke to Minnesota reporters for the first time.
Adams said he was attracted to Minnesota by the presence of G.M. Nolan Teasley and defensive coordinator Brian Flores. Adams spent time with Teasley in Seattle, and he has always respected Flores from afar.
“There’s certain DCs in the league that you pray that you could play for him one day, and, you know, he fits me, man, and we fit each other,” Adams said, via Darren Wolfson of KSTP.
Now that Adams is in Minnesota, where can his career go in his tenth NFL season?
“I mean, the sky’s the limit, man. I just have to get back healthy,” Adams said.
Adams explained the difficulty in fully recovering the quad tendon tear he suffered in Week 1 of the 2022 season.
“You know, when you tear your tendon, it takes time,” Adams said. “It takes years to really get it back to yourself. You might heal, but you’re not back to yourself, mentally and physically. So I just had to get back healthy and, clearly, I just — I know what I can do. I know what I can bring to the table, just got to be out there, you know, fully locked and loaded.”
He said the effort to overcome the injury made it hard for him to perform at a high level, even though he was able to return to action in 2023.
“I wasn’t confident,” Adams said. “I knew my knee wasn’t, you know, fully back yet. But I knew I was on contract. I had to get out there and go out there and sacrifice. I wanted to play with my guys. I went out there, did what I could, but my knee just never could give it to me each and every week, as far as practicing. I’m a practice player. I love to practice. I couldn’t practice full speed, so when you don’t practice full speed, it’s hard to kind of go to the game and transition to full speed. So it took time, but I definitely had a lot of doubt, man, and went through a lot of adversity, but I came out on top, and it made me stronger.”
For now, he’s learning the terminology of the Minnesota defense. And he believes he can eventually be extremely flexible as to where he lines up, even if he’s officially listed as a linebacker.
“I can play linebacker, safety, corner, nose tackle, D-end, kicker,” Adams said. “It don’t even matter. Whatever you want me to play, I play. You want me to walk the dog? I’ll walk the dog.”
His approach is basic. As he said, it’s “see ball, get ball.”
When he was healthy, he was one of the best at doing that. Nearly four years removed from the injury, who knows what’ll happen when he’s added to a defense that can take full advantage of a player who can do a lot of different things?
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