The impact of Davante Adams on the Jets is to be determined. He has already impacted the betting line for Sunday night’s visit by his new team to Pittsburgh.
At DraftKings sports book, the Jets went from 1.5-point underdogs to 1.5-point favorites following the acquisition of Adams.
Is one player who is brand new to the Jets worth a three-point swing? It seems like a lot.
Unless, of course, the potential change in quarterbacks from Justin Fields to Russell Wilson also was a factor in the relatively sharp movement of the spread.
Whatever the line, it’s a huge game for the Jets. A loss drops them to 2-5, further narrowing an already tight window for the Jets to make it to the playoffs.
NFL schedulers sent the Steelers to Las Vegas to face the Raiders in Week Six and they have them back at home to host the Jets in Week Seven, so they’ve been keeping their eyes on wide receiver Davante Adams for some time.
Adams was on the Raiders leading up to last Sunday’s game, but he did not play amid a trade request and a hamstring injury. That trade request was granted when Adams was sent to the Jets on Tuesday, so head coach Mike Tomlin and the rest of the staff now have to account for the possibility that they’ll be facing him this week.
On Tuesday, Tomlin suggested that won’t be a major consideration as they plan for this weekend.
“I was getting ready for Davante last week. I’m getting ready for Davante this week, but that’s life in the National Football League,” Tomlin said, via the team’s website. “I’d imagine his acquisition is going to create some news, not only today, but just as it pertains to this game, and I’m respectful of his talents, but I don’t imagine that his acquisition changes our approach to this game a whole lot. To be quite honest with you, we’re playing an Aaron Rodgers-led group on offense, and that means certain things. When you’ve got a quarterback who’s had the resume that he has and has had the type of success that he’s had, it’s a challenge.”
Jets interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich said on Tuesday that it is too early to know if Adams will be able to jump right into the Jets’ lineup and it’s hard to imagine he’ll have a full grasp of the offense if he does play, but Tomlin and the Steelers will be set if he does get the green light.
The Raiders shopped the contract of receiver Davante Adams for two weeks. On Tuesday, the Jets finalized a deal that sends him from the 2-4 Raiders to the 2-4 Jets.
At the quarterly league meetings in Atlanta, owner Mark Davis discussed the decision to move on from Adams, 37 games into his tenure with the team.
“It’s part of this life in football,” Davis said, with TheAthletic.com. “Players come and go. If things don’t work out, they don’t work out. [G.M.] Tom Telesco did a good job today of making sure that we move forward in the future with as little distraction as possible.”
The word “distraction” underscores the reality that the recent report regarding the Raiders possibly keeping Adams through the end of the year wasn’t anything more than an effort to squeeze the best possible trade terms out of his new team.
Although Davis surely wasn’t happy with the prospect of paying Adams $983,333 per week to not play, Davis said he let Telesco and coach Antonio Pierce handle the situation.
“I leave these decisions up to the General Manager and the head coach,” Davis said. “They make the football decisions. I consult with them and I might play devil’s advocate a lot of times, but they make the decisions and they make the final decision.”
Ultimately, the Raiders assumed none of Adams’s remaining salary. That surely kept them from getting the second-round pick they coveted for Adams — a second-round pick they’ll get only if he becomes a first- or second-team All-Pro.
Given that he has already missed three games this year, he’ll need to have huge numbers in the final eleven games to make the All-Pro team. He has 18 catches for 209 yards and one touchdown to date in 2024. That puts him in a nine-way tie for 76th in the league in receptions. He’s 70th in receiving yards.
Ultimately, the Raiders surrendered a first-round pick and a second-round pick for Adams, while getting back only a third. They also paid him more than $55 million for his 37 games in Las Vegas.
Along the way, they didn’t make it to the playoffs once, amassing a record of 16-24 during Adams’s tenure with the team.
Still, today’s trade counts as lemonade and/or chicken salad. They were going to keep paying him $983,333 per week for 12 weeks, and they would have cut him prior to the start of the 2025 league year, when his massive $35.64 million salary would have hit the books.
The Raiders gave up first- and second-round picks to get Davante Adams from the Packers in 2022. In less than three seasons, the team paid him $62.78 million and in return got 37 games, one Pro Bowl, 221 catches for 2,869 yards and 23 touchdowns with no playoff appearances.
The Raiders sent him to the Jets for a 2025 conditional third-round draft pick that can become a second-round pick based on Adams’ individual performance.
Adams left Aaron Rodgers to reunite with Derek Carr, who left Las Vegas after the 2022 season, and Adams now reunites with Rodgers.
Adams bid the Raiders and Raiders Nation farewell in a social media post.
“As a kid from East Palo Alto who grew up a Raiders fan, the past three years have been an honor and the fulfillment of a childhood dream,” Adams wrote. “I came to Las Vegas with the intention of bringing a championship to the city and have cherished every opportunity to play with that continued pursuit in mind.
“To my teammates, coaches, ownership and staff: You have all taught me countless lessons, and I am forever grateful for the resiliency, drive and commitment you brought every day as we worked tirelessly to building something together.
“To Raider Nation: Thank you for your relentless passion and unwavering support when I put on the historic shield every Sunday. From Oakland to Las Vegas, Raider Nation has and always will be part of my family.”
A staggering array of rude statements can be justified with comments like “I was just answering a question” or “I was just being honest” or “I was just trying to help” or whatever the person who said the rude thing says after the fact to justify their rudeness.
On Monday night, Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers was wrong to publicly criticize receiver Mike Williams for running the wrong route on the play that became the game-sealing interception against the Bills. Rodgers made things worse by trying to word-salad his way out of it during his weekly appearance with Pat McAfee.
“I wasn’t calling Mike out for anything but his responsibility and the details on that play,” Rodgers said. “I have a lot of love and respect for Mike. He does some nice things for us. On that play he wasn’t in the right spot. You can make more of that if you want to, but we all should be held to a standard.”
He’s right. But being held to a standard and being called out publicly are two different things.
Rodgers wouldn’t want to be called out at a press conference by interim coach Jeff Ulbrich for not throwing the ball away when Williams ran the wrong route. Those things are best handled privately.
And who cares if Rodgers was simply answering a question? He’s smart enough (presumably) to provide a response without throwing his teammate under the bus.
“It was just a miscommunication,” he could have said. “I shouldn’t have thrown it.”
But when your best case for being regarded as an all-time great isn’t your Super Bowl wins but your touchdown-to-interception ratio, it’s probably hard to take public responsibility when the number gets reduced by a teammate who did a numbskulled thing.
Rodgers was still wrong to do it. He can say whatever he wants about it now, but he knows he was wrong. And his teammates know he was wrong.
The message to them is simple. You better be careful, buddy; he’s gonna get you next.
