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When the Las Vegas Raiders traded for Davante Adams in March 2022, the hope was that it’d be the start of a great long-term relationship. Adams was excellent in his first year with the team, leading the NFL in touchdown receptions, but Las Vegas disappointed and won only six games. The star wide receiver recently got honest about his frustration with the direction of the team in an interview with The Ringer, leading to speculation that he might want to get traded.
In a video segment called “Packers Trade Proposals,” Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Delray used Fanspo.com’s trade-generating machine to determine whether various fantastical trades had the potential for working out. In one scenario, Delray proposed sending Adams to the team with whom he became a star, the Green Bay Packers, in exchange for offensive tackle Josh Nijman and the Packers’ 2024 second-pick and 2024 third-round pick.
The machine showed the trade as a success even as Delray acknowledged that the “Raiders aren’t super-likely to do that trade.”
Indeed, trading Adams “has a dead cap hit of $31.4 million if traded this year and $23.6 million if traded next year, so that’s not in the cards right now,” according to a May 19 story by The Athletic’s Vic Tafur.
But, wrote NBC Sports’ Mike Florio, trading Adams after June 1 would drop that cap hit to $7.85 million this year.
“The biggest impediment to doing a deal could be the total investment made for what would be one year with Adams,” Florio wrote on May 20. “They Raiders have paid him $42.75 million. They gave up a first-round pick and a second-round pick to get him.”
Davante Adams Thrived in Las Vegas in 2022
After Adams’ comments to The Ringer, he appeared to do some damage control by posting a picture on Instagram Stories of him with general manager Dave Ziegler and praising new quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
It has been just over a year since the Raiders sent a first and second-round pick to the Packers to get Adams. The Raiders then signed him to a five-year deal worth $141 million, with a potential out after the 2024 season, when he will be 32 years old.
He proceeded to top the 1,000-yard mark for the fourth time in his nine-year career, lead the league in touchdown receptions for the second time, earn his third straight first-team All-Pro nod and his sixth straight Pro Bowl invitation.
The stats and accolades were a point of pride for Adams, who, according to The Ringer story, felt as though he needed to prove that he could flourish without Aaron Rodgers as his quarterback.
“Now people can’t say that,” Adams said. “That’ll never be the narrative ever again.”
As for the player who would come back to the Raiders in the Bleacher Report fantasy trade, Nijman is a fourth-year offensive tackle who started 13 of the Packers’ 17 games last season. He received a 63.1 grade from Pro Football Focus, ranking him 53rd in the league among offensive tackles.
Would Davante Adams Want to Go Back to Green Bay?
Though Adams became a superstar in Green Bay, he said it wasn’t always easy to live there.
“I love Green Bay, but I’m a West Coast dude and a lot of family — especially my grandparents — haven’t been able to see me play in close to a decade of playing pro ball,” he told ESPN’s Tim Keown in a story published September 11, 2022. “It’s all the same people that’s coming — and it’s not a whole lot. It’s hard to get into Green Bay, and it’s expensive, too — I’m like, why the hell is it expensive to get into Green Bay?”
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