Joe Douglas insisted he didn’t hang a liquidation sale sign outside of One Jets Drive, that he only fielded calls on any players aside from Sam Darnold ahead of Tuesday’s 4 p.m. trade deadline.
Pro Bowl safety Jamal Adams certainly didn’t see it that way, tweeting he was led to believe the Jets’ general manager went behind his back and “shopped” him around the league after he had pledged his commitment to Gang Green in meetings with the front office last week.
“Any reports of me asking to be traded from the New York Jets are completely false,” Adams tweeted moments after Douglas’ 5:30 p.m. interview session with the media had ended. “At the end of the week last week, I sat down with the GM and Coach [Adam] Gase and told them I want to be here in New York.
“I was told yesterday by my agent that the GM then went behind my back and shopped me around to teams, even after I asked him to keep me here! Crazy business.”
Douglas went on “The Michael Kay Show” on ESPN radio shortly thereafter to clarify that he fielded calls for Adams — as well as Le’Veon Bell and Robby Anderson — before the deadline. The Jets wound up making no additional moves after dealing former first-round pick Leonard Williams to the Giants one day earlier.
“I would say that last week Jamal and I had a good conversation in my office. He did state that he wanted to be a member of this team and he didn’t want to go anywhere,” Douglas said on ESPN. “I’ve stated all along that we did not make any calls on Jamal; teams called us. So teams have been calling us ever since there was a social-media issue a couple of weeks back.
“My message was clear, that Jamal was an absolute stud and we’re not interested in moving him. Teams continued to call and I was always taught where I’m from that if a team calls you listen to what they have to say. At the end of the day, teams called on a lot of our players other than Jamal.
“At the end of the day today we felt that the value that was offered for any player didn’t meet or exceed the value that we have for that player as a New York Jet. We were never in serious trade offers, trade talks, as far as serious offers.”
In an earlier interview Tuesday with Kay, Gase also discounted the possibility of dealing Adams, saying, “For me, no one came knocking on my door to give me a heads-up on anything, so in my eyes I don’t know how real something like that was.”
Still, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported that the Cowboys had engaged in what they believed to be serious talks with the Jets, but Douglas’ asking price was high — a first-round draft pick and two second-rounders. Even the Cowboys’ official Twitter account acknowledged Dallas “had interest, but couldn’t land Jamal Adams.”
Adams clearly was upset after Sunday’s loss to Jacksonville dropped the Jets’ record to 1-6 entering this week’s game against winless Miami.
As Douglas alluded to on ESPN, Adams also dropped any reference to the Jets from his Twitter and Instagram bios on Sept. 17. Tuesday’s social-media outburst marked his latest public crossfire with the organization.
“I don’t take it personally. I think in this case it’s a simple miscommunication,” Douglas said. “Someone told him I was shopping him around, and that was not true, I was not shopping him around. … Someone told him the wrong thing. Again, it was the wrong thing. We did not call anyone. We were not shopping Jamal, I can promise you guys that.”
Speaking earlier with reporters at the Jets’ practice facility in Florham Park, Douglas acknowledged, “There are untouchable players, especially when you’re talking about franchise quarterbacks,” adding that he believes Darnold “absolutely” is one of them.
Douglas added said he had already reached out and spoken to both Bell — in the first year of a four-year $52.5 million contract — and Anderson after the deadline passed, just not Adams.
“There wasn’t a fire sale, there was no garage sale going on with these players,” Douglas said. “We value these guys a lot and ultimately the offers that we received for these players didn’t equal the value that we had for them within this organization.”
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