Seahawks practice squad DT Myles Adams lands on COVID list

The Seattle Seahawks will be in the Phoenix area this weekend as they look to close out their 2021 season in their first ever Week 18 regular season game. When they take the field they will be looking to close out an ugly 2021 season in State Farm Stadium against the Arizona Cardinals, a place many Seattle fans have grown tired of as a result of the bad news so often associated with Glendale and its Ghosts.

One Seahawks player who will not be making the trip this weekend, though, is practice squad defensive tackle Myles Adams, after a positive test has apparently landed him on the COVID list.

There has been no shortage of Seahawks players testing positive and entering the protocols in recent weeks, however Adams presents an interesting case and the Seahawks could make a move that would seem counterintuitive in the coming days. Specifically, once the season for the team has officially come to a close Sunday, on Monday the practice squad will be dissolved and the players on the practice squad will become unrestricted free agents. With that being the case, what teams often opt to do prior to the final week of the regular season is to promote practice squad players they fear might be sought after by other teams, meaning those players typically become exclusive rights free agents rather than unrestricted free agents.

The reason this is relevant is because Adams has impressed many observers when he has been given a shot to see the field, and if he hits free agency next week could easily attract interest from other teams. However, that is where the most recent COVID protocol changes from the NFL could work in the favor of the Seahawks. Under the previous COVID protocols, players could not be moved from the COVID list to the 53 man roster until after the league medical office had cleared them. That has since changed, and teams are now able to move players who have yet to clear protocols to the active roster, and with medical clearance coming later.

Thus, if the Seahawks are worried that Adams could take advantage of becoming an unrestricted free agent Monday and sign a futures contract with another team, they could theoretically promote him to the active roster ahead of the 4 PM New York Time transaction deadline Saturday in order to prevent that from happening. Whether they will or not remains to be seen, and, obviously the key thing about which to be concerned is the health and well being of Adams. That said, this is one of those random interesting CBA tidbits that probably all of about four people on the planet are interested in, but because I’m one of those four you just had to read about it.