Adams Considered Retirement After Knee Injury

[blstoker]

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Former All-Pro safety Jamal Adams is set to make his season debut for the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night against the New York Giants. And ahead of the game, he recounted his recovery process, and shockingly admitted that he briefly considered retirement after his injury last season.

Adams’ 2022 season never even got started, suffering a torn left quadriceps tendon in the Seahawks’ season opener last year against the Denver Broncos.

He opened up about the injury to reporters on Friday, where he said that he was in a “dark place” after the injury, which had him questioning his future in the NFL.

“It was tough,” Adams said via Brady Henderson of ESPN. “I thought about retiring. I thought about a lot of things. Is this going to be it for me? I didn’t know. But I knew eventually, after I got that MRI, I told myself I’m going to be back. I didn’t know when or how, but I was going to figure it out.”

“I was having all types of thoughts running through my mind, but at the time when I did tear my knee, that was definitely something I was considering,” Adams added. “I was considering everything at the moment. I was in a dark place. Not anything suicidal, but definitely in a lot of dark times as far as getting away from the game of football, getting away from people. At the time I wasn’t really talking to many people, wasn’t answering my phone. So you go through real life situations in this game of football.”

His injury in 2022 continued a troubling trend of injuries that have plagued the past few years of his career. Adams missed four games in 2020 with a grade 2 groin strain, and suffered a shoulder labrum tear in the 2021 postseason.

At his best, Adams has shown that he can be one of the best safeties in all of football. From 2018-2020, Adams made three consecutive Pro Bowl appearances.

Considering this, fans were shocked that he considered retirement considering he is seemingly still in the prime of his career at 27 years old.

 

[flyerhawk]

I'm not shocked at all. He's suffered a lot of injuries over the past few years. Sooner or later, a player is just going to give up.

 

[Anointed One]

Yeah I saw that yesterday as well and thought, who could blame him? That's got to be tough to be at the top of your game and then to have injury after injury, rehab after rehab and then keep getting set back with all these expectations from yourself and your fans... I hope he finally gets the work in on the field...

 

[Sharkonabicycle]

I was unaware a quad tear was that big of a deal (I knew it was big, but most doctors say it's way better to tear your ACL than quad). It really does take like 12 months to fully recover. Jamal mentioned in a press conference that he was in a straight cast for a long time. Couldn't shit (literally said that lol) on his own, couldn't shower on his own, etc. Then he was in a wheelchair and everything.

Apparently an ACL is much more preferred because you can still walk around on it, you just can't twist or cut on it until it's repaired. With patellar you can make some bone adjustments and pins, etc. With quad there's absolutely nothing to connect the bone too... once it tears and you surgically repair it, you have to keep the thing 100% straight because if you bend even beyond a slight amount you can tear it all over again.

Quad injuries and probably why Adams got so down on it, it's a longer recovery. Doctors have said you can tear an ACL and live a normal life. You can walk fine and move around fine, you're just limited to activities that don't include those mentioned above (heck people can run on a torn ACL, again they just can't make cuts like you do in soccer/football/etc.). Quad you can't straighten your knee... so you can't walk normally or really engage in much activity period with pain. It's like having gout or something yet it doesn't clear up until surgery and physical therapy. And then you have to make sure once you do have surgery you SLOWLY rehabilitate it and get the muscle back so it doesn't tear again.

Nasty stuff. Now Adams got the best medical care in the World given he's a professional athlete that a team heavily invested in, and I'm sure he's back to the strength he was before, but technically it could tear again... in which case yah he'd be done in the NFL.