Why Jamal Adams’ Attendance at Seattle Seahawks’ Training Camp Matters

Jamal Adams attends the Seahawks training camp. However, he’s on the sidelines, wearing his # 33 training jersey and hat – not a Seahawks helmet. Trainer Pete Carroll stated that Star Security would likely have been taken out of practice anyway to protect his surgically repaired shoulder and fingers.

It is only right that Adams should endure. Or, in this case, orchestrates a “hold”. Before he returns to the practice, he and the Seahawks must reach an agreement on a new deal. Why risk millions of dollars during the early off-season installation phases? For a player in Adams’s position, it’s much better to secure his financial future first, and the defensive weapon, which will turn 26 in October, more than deserves its outstanding overtime.

Even if he’s not practicing, it’s important that Adams be at VMAC during this time. This goes beyond just being in defensive meetings and watching his teammates in person. Training camps and football in the preseason have an additional, deeper, immaterial meaning.

This is explained by exploring Carroll’s psychological beliefs and his methods as a coach. First, he believes very much in finding players with “grit”. Grit is the key to winning forever, being the best version of yourself. Angela Duckworth, academic and psychologist, developed the “Grit Scale”. Passion, perseverance and resilience are what make sand, according to Duckworth. Carroll is a major proponent of Duckworth’s work and even had Duckworth visit VMAC in May 2016.

“Angela Duckworth didn’t know that courage can be increased, but we’ve learned and shown it, and she doesn’t think that way anymore,” Carroll said at the Wisdom 2.0 conference in San Francisco in February 2016. “You can help people, To become more passionate and learn to persevere and understand what it takes to be more resilient. “

Carroll spoke to Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman’s The Physchology Podcast on the kind of players the Seahawks are looking for.

“Once we have the physical requirements, we look for the attitude they bring, the mentality they bring,” Carroll reveals. “We are looking, if we had set it up ideally, we would start with passion. They would be passionate about what they do. “

Carroll then referred to perseverance and said, “And we want to see people who keep coming back to you and not giving up and persevering.”

He closed the discussion on resilience and said, “And we would hopefully develop a relationship with the game they are playing, in which they would develop an attitude where nothing prevents them from getting what they want or getting there to go where they want to go. And they were able to recover from it all, and that is resilience.

I’m just talking about grit across the board. Those are the elements that really come to the fore when it comes to being gritty, and that’s what we’re looking for. “

In 2017, Carroll held a seminar for USC students called “Competitive Mindset,” part of the university’s performance science program, and Dr. Glenn Fox’s Science of High Performance class. AQ and A session followed Carroll’s presentation.

One student asked, “You said earlier that you have specific techniques and strategies to develop the passion, perseverance and all the components of the grit of an athlete or competitor. What exactly are these techniques, especially with passion and practice? “

Carroll responded by emphasizing the passion that is a big part of how the Seahawks increase the grit.

“In terms of passion, if you sense someone who is not then we try – one of the things we do is connect them and kind of fraternize them with someone who is obviously a passionate person” replied Carroll.

“And then we’ll see how it works. It doesn’t always work, they don’t always click. Because sometimes when one person is really passionate the other is not, they kind of disagree. But we’re trying to connect them and show them an illustration of how it could be. Don’t just tell them, show them. And we have great players on our team. And I keep promoting these guys for the things they do. So that we can continue to illustrate the guys who are special to us, in the hope that others will want to become more like them. “

Carroll provided an example of how this player support had worked for the Seahawks in the past.

“I have a great illustration. It happened to one player, Byron Maxwell, was a corner that was being traded or not, was freed up a few years ago. He clung to Earl Thomas, who was an exceptional competitor, and just followed him around. And he was a sucker, Maxwell was a sucker. He was just having fun, a free flowing guy, but he didn’t play much. And one day it hit him. How about? Earl does something that I don’t and he became a great player by joining and sticking to habits that the others were.

Maxwell took over the right cornerback after the suspension of Brandon Browner and became an important part of the Legion of Boom secondary. He left during the Free Agency in 2015, which was signed by the Philadelphia Eagles on a six-year contract for $ 63 million and a $ 25 million guarantee. Out of the Seahawks’ schema and perhaps more importantly removed from their culture, Maxwell’s level of play dropped dramatically.

Like Earl Thomas, Adams could also be described as an “exceptional competitor”. It extends further. In his press conference on July 29, after Adams was taken over by the Jets, Defense Chief Bobby Wagner praised Adams’ psychological effect.

“His energy is so contagious that you want to improve,” said Wagner.

When a legendary NFL veteran says that, imagine Adams’ effect on a younger player.

It is very likely that Adams, who is sophomore year in Seattle, has become a mentor to a player who fights from a passion perspective. Of course, Carroll would never reveal such a vulnerable detail at this point. However, the presence of Adams in the camp, even if he is not playing, is certainly positive for the psychological aspect of the Seahawks.

Carlos Dunlap is impressed with Carroll’s program.

“Business is business, they communicated the business part from the start. And you have to respect that, ”Dunlap began, answering a July 28 question about the cut ahead of signing his 2021 deal with Seattle. “And that’s one of the things I love here. It’s very clear communication about what we do, what they expect from you, and then they try to get to know you as a person and how they can help you make you better as a man because they know how to make you as a one a better man also makes you a better player. “

For a player who’d spent time with one of the stuffiest, stingy franchises in the league, the 32-year-old pass-rusher was clearly blown away by the Seahawks’ culture.

“So it’s like an all-encompassing approach, like it’s just … I can’t, I’m still trying to figure it all out,” Dunlap continued. “I hope Pete Carroll comes out with a book because I want to run my business the way he does it.”

Dunlap was informed by the assembled media that Carroll actually had a book called Win Forever. The defensive end, who wanted an audiobook edition, would surely also be happy to see Carroll’s various appearances at conferences, seminars, and in podcasts.

The Seahawks work closely with Doctor Michael Gervais as a high-performance psychologist known for his work on mindfulness. Pete Carroll’s thinking is closely tied to Gervais, and the two have been working together for nine years, founded Win Forever Consulting in 2013 and co-founded Compete to Create in 2017.