5 reasons to celebrate LT Trey Adams return to Washington Football

LT Trey Adam’s injury derailed the Washington football team’s offense. Now he’s coming back off an ACL injury. Here are 5 reasons to celebrate.

The Washington Football team has been remarkably successful in recent years, coinciding with the reign of current head coach Chris Petersen. But Petersen coaches, so he needs to find those player who can deliver on the football field. Senior left tackle Trey Adams is such a player. One can argue that the most important role on a football team is the center, as that is the one position on the offensive line where the ball is exchanged to the quarterback. But the NFL votes on a different position with their draft choices and their salary dollars.

Left Tackle.

Blind side importance

And for good reason. The offensive line left tackle is responsible for the most vulnerable part to the right handed NFL quarterback. His blind side. NFL teams know this, and stack up their best pass rushers on the right side of their defensive line. That means offensive lines must stack up on that side as well. But since the offense is the mirror image of the defense, the right side strength on the DL translates into left side strength on the OL. Simple enough.

This season, left tackle Trey Adams is stepping out from the shadows into the full spotlight. Much like defensive lineman Vita Vea, Adams projected well to the 2018 NFL Draft before the season began. That now has him on the national watch list for the 2019 NFL Draft. So now the spotlight shines upon him. And that’s just fine. Trey Adams is ready.

Best offensive lineman in the Pac-12

Trey Adams is one of the Pac-12’s worst kept secrets on the offensive line. He’s been lauded for his line play for some time. In fact, in the 2017 pre-season, he made the list of top offensive linemen for the 2018 NFL Draft. But before that, he helped lead the 2016 Washington Football team to the Pac-12 title

Pac-12 Champs spotlight

And that was no small feat. From that season, Trey Adams began to get noticed. A lot.

The 2017 season ended prematurely for Adams. In the shocking loss at Arizona State University, the Huskies lost more than one game. They lost left tackle Trey Adams for the season due to a right knee injury. When that happened, I suspect any interest to test the 2018 NFL Draft vanished. Adams determined that he wanted to end his Huskies career on a high note.

Projected as 2018 top NFL prospect

At the beginning of the 2017 NCAA football season, pro scouts had already begun to project Trey Adams as a top prospect for the 2018 NFL Draft. As a left tackle, Adams is automatically considered by NFL Scouts. But then they looked at his game tape and the obvious jumped out at them. He’s ready to play in the NFL. At least, that continued to be the consensus.

Offensive tackle Trey Adams is fundamentally sound. But he must now overcome a right knee injury. For an offensive tackle, that is not an easy injury to rehab from.

Injury timetable?

That knee injury occurred in mid October 2017. Reports indicate that is was the ACL of the right knee. So what is that recovery time looking like? Well, the timetable for an ACL is a 9-11 months window, per Salene Parekh, MD of thefantasydoctors.com.  That same snippet reports that Adams had surgery to repair the damaged ligament. Without a more detailed report, there is little to go on from that information.

But we do know that Adams is 6-foot-8 and 327 pounds. Even healthy, that’s a good load for his knees. So from the moment of the ACL Surgery, the timeline looks like this:

Timeline of recovery

          Timeline              Calendar             Activities

• 0-2 weeks          Mid Nov              Crutches, no weight, elevation, wound care|
• 2-4 weeks          End Nov              Some weight, Knee brace fitted. Physical Therapy begins
• 4-6 weeks          Mid Dec              Brace remains. Full range of motion exercises.
• 6-8 weeks          End Dec              Full Physical Therapy regiment. Knee Brace, Controlled
  exercises to strengthen knee. limited impact (swimming rowing cycling)
• 2-6 months        End April            Increased exercise on knee. Brace remains as injured site
  heals and strengthens.
• 6-9 months        End July              Supportive brace remains. gradual increase to athletic
  activity and exercise. Still limits to hard start stops and twisting knee.
• 9-11 months     End Sept             Only now, after the medically cleared to compete happens,
  can Trey Adams put on the pads and begin to train to play football once more. And even when he trains, he is shaking off a year of rust. So the Huskies may start the season
  opener against the Auburn Tigers without Adams at LT.

After it’s all said and done, the Huskies will have given next year starters significant playing time, and Adams will be back to help the team get back to the Pac-12 Championship Game.

Block for Jake Browning and Myles Gaskin

Continuity. As football players play together, they learn each others strengths, weaknesses, and tendancies. It’s that ability to anticipate what teammates can and cannot do which raises the overall team performance.  With so much history among them, Trey Adams knows QB Jake Browning and running back Myles Gaskin. Likewise, Browning and Gaskin know left tackle Adams.

Trey Adams is good for good reason. Historically, he makes the blocks necessary. Adams is one of the reasons that the team counts on running back Myles Gaskin for 1,300 yards of rushing offense. And he contributes solidly to that security for quarterback Jake Browning holding his sacks down to a minimum.

Returning Adams restores passing game

We analyzed the Huskies passing game from 2017, and it was clear that with the injury to Adams, the entire passing game seemed to regress.  Sack rates went up. Passes to primary receives declined. And with that trend, the team focused more on the running game.

If the cause and effect of Adams injury impacted the passing game, then the inverse must be true as well. Restoring Adams to the offensive line should cure the 2017 woes to the team’s passing game. The team is also getting back wide receivers Chico McClatcher and Quinten Pounds as well. So can the team recover the passing game to the 2016 level of proficiency? Here’ hoping they do.

Mentors younger offensive linemen

Senior Trey Adams comes back for his senior year, his final season of NCAA eligibility. it’s already on his mind: this is his last season. And much like teammate Kaleb McGary, he is very aware that the team counts on him to help coach up younger offensive linemen.  So that is what he does.

The fact is that the mentoring process is alive and well with the Washington Huskies. After Adams fell to injury, the team already had two players identified who could absorb minutes at the crucial left tackle spot: senior Andrew Kirkland and sophomore Luke Wattenberg.  This year, that responsibility falls to Wattenberg if Adams in unable to suit up for the September games.

But that is part of the process all along. Coaches build players up to prepare them for the NFL. in doing so, the team’s overall play improves and the team wins games. And upperclassmen help bring the underclassmen along. That is what it takes to build a championship team.

One more chance at the national championship

Let’s face it folks. The Washington Football team left some unfinished business on the football field.  Last season’s schedule tilted tougher games to the latter part of the season. On a healthy year, that works to the team’s advantage. But it was an injury plagued year. And so, the best of the team’s roster never saw the playing field on the toughest, and biggest games of the year.

Trey Adams is one such player. And he’s back to correct that chain of events. But this will not be the same team. Players graduate. Some go to the NFL. Even heavily recruited juniors cannot say no to the huge paydays luring them to the NFL. Trey Adams is one player who can do so.

Risky move, high reward

Now don’t second guess his decision. Even injured, his game videos were very positive – positive enough to ensure a minimum of a second or third round floor. He has incredible size, weight, fundamentals, and agility for the NFL. The only and biggest question mark came down to one point – how long and how much recovery following his ACL surgery.  By returning to the NFL, he will have the opportunity to answer that question directly.

Next: OT Kaleb McGary returns to Washington Football for senior year

It’s a risk. If he suffers another injury, his stock will fall simply from the “he’s too fragile” label – warranted or not. But he disregards is own destiny. In the mind of Trey Adams, the Washington Football team has a good chance at a national championship this year, and he wants to be part of that. And I think he may be right. He won’t be in spring training. And he may not be seeing much action when the fall training season opens up. But come gameday, offensive tackle Trey Adams will find a way to be ready.  After all, he didn’t return for his senior season to watch teammates play.