NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Three-time Pro Bowl safety Jamal Adams' tenure with the Tennessee Titans ended Thursday on his 29th birthday with his release after the team placed the eight-year veteran on reserve/non-football injury list last weekend.
That roster move came after the Titans (1-4) already had declared Adams out with a hip injury. Adams started one of three games played for Tennessee, and he had just one tackle Sept. 30 in the Titans' one win at Miami.
The first-round pick in 2017 by the New York Jets signed a one-year deal with Tennessee just before training camp opened in July. He saw joining a defense coordinated by his former Jets secondary coach Dennard Wilson along with safeties coach Steve Jackson and linebackers coach Frank Bush giving him a comfort level. His former Seattle safety Quandre Diggs already was on the Tennessee roster.
Wilson deferred questions Thursday to coach Brian Callahan, who won't talk to reporters again until Friday, on why Adams didn't work out here. The Titans used seven starters new to this defense this season in last week's loss to Indianapolis.
“At this point, wish Jamal the best going forward,” Wilson said. “It just didn't work out. Going forward, he'll have success wherever he goes.”
The sixth overall pick out of LSU started every game his first two seasons with the Jets and every game in his career when healthy until this season. Adams lasted only three seasons with the Jets before being traded to the Seahawks in 2020 where he earned his third straight Pro Bowl nod that season.
He played just 10 games over the past two seasons in Seattle. The Seahawks released him and Diggs in March despite taking on nearly $20 million in dead cap money by not waiting until after June 1.
Diggs has started all five games after signing with Tennessee this offseason alongside Amani Hooker. Asked Wednesday if he had talked with Adams, Diggs said he talks with his friend regularly but declined to comment on what was going on between Adams and the Titans.
“All I could do is be there for my brother, you know?" Diggs said. "I mean, that’s all I can do. That’s all I will do. ... Whatever’s going on, you got to stay internal. And, you know, they’ll figure that out.”
The Titans currently have the NFL's stingiest defense in total yards allowed and against the pass.
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Tennessee Titans head coach Brian Callahan argues a call during the second half of an NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
FILE - Tennessee Titans safety Jamal Adams (33) stands on the sideline before an NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers, Sept. 22, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli forces in Gaza killed Hamas’ top leader Yahya Sinwar, a chief architect of last year's attack on Israel that sparked the war, the military said Thursday. Troops appeared to have run across him in a battle, only to discover afterwards that a body in the rubble was the man Israel has hunted for more than a year.
Sinwar has topped Israel’s most wanted list since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war just over a year ago, and his killing strikes a powerful blow to the militant group. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas of his death.
The military confirmed Sinwar's death after conducting DNA tests on a body it said was among three militants killed Wednesday during operations in Gaza. Foreign Minister Israel Katz called Sinwar’s killing a “military and moral achievement for the Israeli army,” saying it would “create the possibility to immediately release the hostages.”
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant addressed Hamas fighters, saying it “is time to go out, release the hostages, raise your hands, surrender.”
Sinwar was one of the chief architects of Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel has vowed to kill him since the beginning of its retaliatory campaign in Gaza. He has been Hamas’ top leader inside the Gaza Strip for years, closely connected to its military wing while dramatically building up its capabilities.
An Israeli security official said it appeared that the man who turned out to be Sinwar was killed in a battle, not in a planned targeted airstrike.
Photos circulating online showed the body of a man resembling Sinwar with a gaping head wound, dressed in a military-style vest, half buried in the rubble of a destroyed building. The security official confirmed the photos were taken by Israeli security officials at the scene. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
The Israeli news site N12 said Sinwar appears to have been killed by chance in a battle on Wednesday. It said that troops tracked a group of militants into a building, then attacked the militants with tank fire, causing the building to collapse. As troops unearthed the dead militants, they noticed that one appeared to resemble Sinwar.
Sinwar was imprisoned by Israel from the late 1980s until 2011, and during that time he underwent treatment for brain cancer – leaving Israeli authorities with extensive medical records.
President Joe Biden has been briefed on Israel’s investigation into whether it killed Sinwar, and U.S. officials have been in close contact with Israeli officials throughout Thursday morning, according to a senior administration official.
Sinwar was chosen as Hamas’s top leader in July after his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in an apparent Israeli strike in the Iranian capital Tehran. Israel has also claimed to have killed the head of Hamas’ military wing Mohammed Deif in an airstrike, but the group has said he survived.
The report of his death came as Israeli forces continued a more than week-old major air and ground assault in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. On Thursday, an Israeli strike hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing at least 28 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Fares Abu Hamza, head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency unit in the north, said the dead included a woman and four children, correcting an earlier report of five children. He said dozens of people were wounded.
The Israeli military said it targeted a command center run by Hamas and Islamic Jihad inside the school. It provided a list of around a dozen names of people it identified as militants who were present when the strike was called in. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.
Israel has repeatedly struck tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli military says it carries out precise strikes on militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza to eliminate Hamas after the militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Some 100 captives are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities.
Northern Gaza was the first target of Israel’s ground invasion nearly a year ago and has suffered the heaviest destruction of the war, with entire neighborhoods in Gaza City and other towns reduced to rubble. Most of the population fled after Israel issued evacuation orders in the opening days of the war, but about 400,000 are believed to have remained despite the harsh conditions.
Earlier this month, Israel once again ordered the full-scale evacuation of the north, and allowed no food aid to enter the area for around two weeks. That led many Palestinians to fear that it had adopted a surrender-or-starve strategy suggested by former Israeli generals.
Israel allowed two shipments of aid to enter the north earlier this week after the United States warned it might reduce its military aid if its ally did not do more to address the humanitarian crisis.
Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have launched repeated operations into Jabaliya, a densely populated urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. The military says militants have repeatedly regrouped there after major operations.
Sami Magdy reported from Cairo. AP writers Jack Jeffery in Jerusalem and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Palestinians line up for food distribution in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians line up for food distribution in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians line up for food distribution in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Smoke rises following Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Smokes rise following an explosion in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
FILE - Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza, chairs a meeting with leaders of Palestinian factions at his office in Gaza City, on April 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)
