He's the best spur we've seen in years and I think Carroll is going to be able to do a lot of things with him.
In the box, sure. But I'll be surprised if that defense doesn't get roasted deep a lot in 2020. Carroll might be forced to drop Adams into coverage more than he would like. He could thrive there given more opportunities in coverage, but we didn't see much from him as a true safety.
Look at what Mark Barron did in that role under Gregg Williams. A player that was considered a bust by many thrived in that hybrid linebacker role under Gregg Williams and Dennard Wilson. I'm interested to see who plays that role in 2020. I'm thinking it's going to be Ashtyn Davis. You don't need an elite player there. You need a capable one.
My very first year coaching, I coached defensive backs. Our defensive coordinator at that time was a former safeties coach at University of South Carolina and he loved the SPUR position.
Our head coach (an offensive minded, OL coach) was terrified of the SPUR because you could move that player around and screw with alignments and blocking assignments. What he failed to realize, is that creative playcallers (which he definitely wasn't) could erase that player, specifically on passing downs. That's what I saw a lot with Adams, invisible or away from the play on passing downs. Our HC wanted to put our best athlete at SPUR because he thought it was so important and when we took him out of the middle of the field, our defense suffered as a whole. We moved that kid back to FS and put an athletic linebacker at SPUR. Both got scholarships.
The athletic linebacker plays ILB at Wofford because he was awesome against the run and was a terror as a pass rusher, but he didn't make plays in coverage.