Wednesday, Seattle Seahawks safety Jamal Adams had the opportunity to make amends for, or at least move past, his social media beef with SNY reporter Connor Hughes.
He declined to take that opportunity.
In case you missed it, Hughes posted a video on X last week of Adams (who previously played for the New York Jets) getting beat for a touchdown in the Seahawks’ loss to the Dallas Cowboys. Adams added a caption of “Yikes” to the video.
Adams became aware of the post and made things much more personal, responding with a post that featured a photo of the reporter’s wife with the caption “Yikes” above it.
After he started receiving backlash for the post, he deleted it but then shared a new post that read “Don’t start nothin won’t be nothin.”
Many New York media members came to the defense of Hughes while also calling out Adams, including Brian Costello of the New York Post.
“I’ve covered a lot of players through the years. Never met any who was more of a phony than Jamal Adams,” wrote Costello. “I always thought he was a bad guy. Today he proved he is even worse than I thought.”
Adams later took a shot at Costello, calling him “Mr. Potato Head.”
On Wednesday, Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll told reporters that he spoke with Adams about the online drama and that they all wanted to put it behind them.
“We’ve already addressed (it),” Carroll said, via The News Tribune’s Gregg Bell. “I don’t know if it was a great decision at the time. I’m not sure about the details of it, but I know that he realized that he needed to take it down. …
“We don’t want to be a part of that.”
Apparently, Adams didn’t the message on that last part. When asked about the situation by reporters, Adams remained steadfast in the presumption he did nothing wrong.
“It’s always the athlete that crossed the line when he responds. But at the end of the day, disrespect is disrespect, however you want to take it,” Adams said. “So, I responded. I knew when I did hit that tweet, I wasn’t in it to win it. At the end of the day, it was to get him to understand, ‘Leave me the hell alone.’”
“When others go low, I go lower.”
Charming.
Just to make it even clearer, Adams reiterated that he did not regret posting a photo of Hughes’ wife on social media.
“I mean, you can sit there and have regret. But I don’t live that way in my life. …We’ve had history…We’ve never liked each other.
“Obviously, hey, he responded to something that was uncalled for that he didn’t need to speak on. And, honestly, I’ve been letting him slide for too long and I just got fed up with it. I did what I did. I hate that I had to bring her into the situation, but at the end of the day, the ultimate goal was to get at him.
“I’m not here to say if it was fair or not. But at the same time, at the end of the day, it’s been personal with him and I ever since I’ve been with the Jets and even before that, since my rookie year. Like I said, it’s been going on for countless years. He’s always said some smart things toward my play, if I do make a mistake. And I just got fed up with it, bro. This was the end of it. And I knew, this only thing right here, I was going to Tweet was going to hurt him. Anything else I said wouldn’t have hurt him. But he got my point. And he knows not to continue to mess with me.
“Again, didn’t want to bring her in. But I just so happened I scrolled down and I seen what I seen, and I responded back with the same comment he made.”
Adams seems secure in his notion that he’s the winner here, but we have to imagine that his reputation has taken a pretty big hit with a lot of people around the league, especially in the media.
