When veteran defender Jamal Adams joined the Vikings, the team assigned him a traditional linebacker number: 54. He recently switched to 32.<\/p>\n
And while he\u2019s still officially listed in the team\u2019s online roster as a linebacker, the change means Adams will be playing plenty of safety \u2014 his original NFL position.<\/p>\n
Adams anticipates being deployed at both positions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was telling some people inside the training room, just to have somebody believe in me again, and to know I can go back there and play the safety position, it feels great,\u201d Adams said, via Lindsey Young of Vikings.com. \u201cI can kind of do it all in the back end. I just want to be versatile and do anything I can to help the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe key is winning. So whatever they need me to do, I\u2019m going to do. That\u2019s what I\u2019m here for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adams reiterated prior comments regarding the long road back to full health after tearing a quad tendon in Week 1 of the 2022 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got hurt in \u201922, and then . . . those two or three years, I felt like I lost a little bit off my career,\u201d Adams said. \u201cSo for me, it\u2019s like a rebirth. There was a lot of adversity I went through, and I knew eventually I was going to make it out of that hole, but it was going to take time \u2014 and it took longer than I expected. But mentally and physically, I had to rebrand myself, be better on and off the field as far as my mentals and how I approached the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a different perspective. It\u2019s a different perspective on not only football but just life. Just being grateful and being happy where I am. Being where my feet are and just embracing the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adams\u2019s versatility fits perfectly with the Brian Flores defense, which uses chaos and unpredictability to rattle nerves and create mismatches. Adams could end up being a key piece of the Minnesota attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When veteran defender Jamal Adams joined the Vikings, the team assigned him a traditional linebacker number: 54. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-807872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}