Getty Davante Adams of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Coming out of a rough Week 4 loss to the Lions, the Packers have plenty of time to look ahead to their next opponent, another bright-lights game but this time with an added twist: For the first time, Green Bay will face off against star wide receiver Davante Adams, whose Raiders are struggling at 1-3 but who remains among the best wide receivers in the game.
That is a challenge for defensive coordinator Joe Berry. Asked about seeing Adams in Week 5, he first smirked and said, “Socially? Or …”
Uh, on the field, Joe.
“I think this league is full of great players, and every team has them,” Barry said on Monday. “And week-in and week-out, you got to find ways to defend them and have a plan for them, and Tae is one of the current and one of the best of all-time. So, it will be a great challenge for us. But of course, I’m excited to see him. I enjoyed the time that I had with him even though it was brief here, but [he’s an] incredible player.”
He is. Adams is currently eighth in the NFL in receiving yardage (397) and tied for third in receptions (33). But, on a team level, his decision to leave the Packers has not quite worked out how it was supposed to go.
Davante Adams Wanted to Head West
Adams, of course, played eight seasons in Green Bay, and earned five Pro Bowl selections in that time. He left the team by trade in March 2022, with the Packers getting Las Vegas’s first- and second-round picks in that year’s draft. The Packers did not want to lose Adams—they offered him more money in a contract extension to stay than the Raiders wound up paying him—but Adams was uncertain about the future in Green Bay with Aaron Rodgers heading out the door. And, he wanted to raise his family on the West Coast.
“There’s much more that goes into it. And family is a big part of it for me,” Adams said in June 2022. “I had the choice and the choice was for me to come here and raise my family on the West Coast and come out here and have some fun in the sun.”
It will be painful to see him in another jersey, but the Adams trade has worked out about as well as possible for Green Bay, who took linebacker Quay Walker with the first Raiders’ pick and used the second to move up and draft Christian Watson. Both players are still green in NFL terms, but have shown star potential.
Davante Adams Has Expressed Concern With Raiders’ Start
The sun is there, for sure, but mostly, his time in Las Vegas has not been much fun for Adams. One reason he wanted to play for the Raiders was to reunite with his college quarterback and friend Derek Carr, but Carr was released in the offseason, after the Raiders went 6-11 last season under new coach Josh McDaniels.
This year, after a disappointing Week 3 loss to the Steelers, Adams raised eyebrows by saying he doesn’t “have time” for the Raiders’ growing pains.
“It’s not my mentality to try to sit here and take all season to figure it out, use these early games like this to establish our identity, and we not doing things the right way to establish a winning culture early in the season,” Adams said. “So, we’ve got to do something to turn that around.”
That led to speculation that Adams would eventually want a trade, though he has not specifically requested that. Still, things have not been great for Adams, and lining up against the Packers will surely stir up as many emotions in him as it will for his old teammates and fans in Green Bay.