The Seahawks will finish the 2021 season without one of their top defensive players, as the Pro-Bowl and All-Pro safety is set to have surgery this week on the shoulder he injured in Sunday’s win over he 49ers.

“Jamal Adams is going to have surgery, I think it’s tomorrow, on his shoulder,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “Unfortunately, he got hit just the wrong way, and he’s going to have to get fixed up. He’s been through this before, and he’s really rocked by it of course. We’re all pulling for him to get out of this thing and get back as soon as possible. Really disappointed for him as well as us.”

As Carroll noted, this is the same shoulder Adams injured late last season, leading to offseason surgery, though Carroll said the injury, “wasn’t as bad as the last time is what I understand.”

Carroll said the injury was the result of Adams getting, “hit in exactly the wrong spot. It just was unfortunate that it happened.” And not surprisingly for a player as passionate about the game as Adams, finding out he needed surgery was hard news to take.

“He was really emotional about it last night, just because it means so much to him to keep playing, and he’s been through this before and to have to go through it again,” Carroll said. 

The Seahawks will now turn to Ryan Neal, a player in whom coaches and teammates have a lot of confidence. Neal started four games in place of an injured Adams last year, and he has had a regular role on defense this season in dime packages. But even though the Seahawks are expecting to get good play out of Neal, there’s no replacing everything Adams brought to the team.

“You lose all of the fire that he brings and explosive plays, big hits,” Carroll said. “He’s had a couple of picks. He’s been doing everything except for we haven’t gotten the sacks that we got a year ago, but other than that he’s been playing really hard and tough, and he’s got a lot of energy for us, it’s been very positive.”