Don’t worry, Packers fans…Davante Adams isn’t pushing for a trade out of Green Bay. However, when asked about the Aaron Rodgers rumors during an appearance on The Herd with Colin Cowherd, the star receiver admitted that a Rodgers trade would certainly make him rethink his own future in Green Bay.
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“That’s the only [quarterback] that I’ve played with, and we’ve built up a special connection over the years that has put us both in really good positions in our careers,” Adams said (video via The Athletic’s Matt Schneidman on Twitter). “We’ve established a lot together. It would change a lot. It doesn’t mean potentially I’d be gone, but I’d definitely have to do some extra thinking if my guy wasn’t here.”
For starters, it’s not a huge surprise that Adams would be so supportive of his quarterback; other than the 2017 season where Brett Hundley had to briefly fill in, the wideout’s only received passes from Rodgers since he entered the NFL in 2014. Since that time, Adams has made four Pro Bowls, he’s twice exceeded 1,300 yards in a season, and he’s hauled in 62 touchdowns (including 58 scores since 2016). In other words, it’d be a little weird if Adams wasn’t wary of a Rodgers trade.
On the other side, it’s not necessarily a ringing endorsement for the Packers organization (or, if you want to dig a bit deeper, 2020 first-round pick Jordan Love). Unfortunately for Green Bay, they won’t have much of a say in the matter, as Adams is set to hit free agency following the 2021 season (the team could obviously retain the wideout for an additional season or two via the franchise tag, but drama would soon prevail). In the hypothetical world where the Packers do indeed trade Rodgers, it could make sense for the front office to shop Adams even if the receiver doesn’t explicitly ask for a trade.
Well Brian Gutekunst, how’s that seat feeling?
The GM of a team that just went to an NFC Championship and should have gone to the Super Bowl (if certain players didn’t choke) is on the hot seat? Man oh man, being the Packers GM is a thankless job.
There’s a touch more to the job than what the team accomplished on the field..in the past.
He’s supposed to keep improving the roster to get over the hump, not sign the franchise qb to an extension, the. A year later hit the panic button, trade up to draft his [eventual] replacement. Then load up on borderline average TE/H-back types (we won’t discuss those players inability to even get on the field) a round or more earlier than they were graded.. And completely ignore the WR (for the love of pancakes people, stop claiming Devin Funchess is a difference maker), D-line and ILB positions, and bring back nearly every subpar player from the last 2 seasons (Lowry, Lancaster, King) rather than take some kind of chance that somebody..ANYBODY else, might offer more.
I think that is enough reason his seat should be hot. Sadly, because he and Mark Murphy seem to share the same brain, it most likely isn’t.
Rodgers was an average QB for the previous 3 years by his own standards, and then he goes out and has a career year for no other reason than to spite them. If he was fully capable of playing this well all along, why didnt he? Packers had every right to draft the guy they feel is his replacement, that is after all how they got Rodgers in the first place. You dont think Favre wanted another receiver? If the only reason he showed up to play this year was spite, hes not going to perform if he doesn’t want to be there, which is evidently the case.
You’re right, Rodgers had absolutely no other reason to have the best year of his career than to spite the front office for drafting Love. The only thing he cared about was making management look bad.
As far as being “average” by his own standards..for starters, his average is a career year for most qb’s. And once again we have a Favre comparison..I’m shocked. Couple things: 1. Thompson (I believe he was GM that year..) had a deal in place to acquire randy moss. The plan was to finalize the deal the next day, then the patriots swoop in literally in the middle of the night and got him. 2. Maybe management would have gotten Favre anything he wanted…if he could have just committed to NOT retiring. His waffling was the reason Rodgers didn’t continue to fall down the draft board.
Just once I’d like to hear from Rodgers himself that he doesn’t/ didn’t want to be there. Maybe its true, but I’m not going to take the word of people who make up rumors for a living that its true. I believe Adam Schefter already admitted he made up basically the whole story he dropped on draft night. And NOBODY reveals any sources for the garbage they spread. But some guy on a rumor site commented that he doesn’t want to be there so it must be true.
Thats great, but they werent paying top qb money for a career year for your average qb, they were paying top dollar for aaron rodgers, which is why they drafted his heir apparent when he didn’t produce as such.
Amen!
Rodgers wants guaranteed money, lol no at 37. Then he gets pissed the Packers draft a new guy — why?
Karen Rodgers is a diva, needs to get the chip off his shoulder and retire for the good of things
A GM’s job is to do what is best for the franchise going forward. He did that by drafting one QB early to set up the future. Somehow by doing his job he should be fired… for reasons.
Lol if you think Gute had ANY role in that…..
If the Packers went 6-10 you would be putting all of the blame on him. But they go to the NFC Championship and he had no role in the success? No reasonable person would ever come to that conclusion because it’s beyond unfair. I’ll say it again, being the GM in Green Bay is a thankless job. He really can’t win. And to put the cherry on top, his quarterback leaks a story about his unhappiness on the eve of the draft to make his job all the more difficult.
At least he’s paid well…I guess.
What notable accomplishment does Gutekunst have on his resume? Just name one, since he is the reason for the Packers’ success. Seriously, give us some.
Aaron Rodgers has a few. What does Gutekunst have? Signing Z.Smith. There’s that. What else?
If you’re argument is he hasn’t gotten a championship, you can say that Rodgers hasn’t done so either. At least not in a Decade. Just to clarify for the newlyweds, a decade is not 4 years, it’s 10. Do they hold parades for MVPs? No? Okay so it’s worth just as much as a snow globe. If it’s just SB or bust neither Rodgers or Gutcheck have done anything.
So we write off three of Brady’s Superbowls because they were almost twenty years ago? Big Ben never won any? Get real, dude. An MVP is the most an individual can get. They don’t do parades for it, but they do hand out trophies. Like the, um, Super Bowl does. And yes, an MVP (and what’s more, 48 touchdowns) are more than what Gute brings to the table…let alone a Super Bowl win. Come on, man.
Gutenkunst is hard to judge. A perennial top 3 QB can hide a multitude of missteps. Not saying he’s made many, just that Rodgers, prima donna or not, makes everyone look better. One thing we do know- He didn’t have the smarts to communicate his intent to draft a QB to Rodgers which was really dumb. Even Ryan Pace called Andy Dalton before drafting Fields as a courtesy. Yes, he’s on the hot seat.
Hey Greg M, maybe if the Packers had drafted a player that could have actually helped them win the Super Bowl last year things would be different but when they put more value in drafting your replacement down the road that has an affect on not only Rodgers but the entire team trying to win now. I don’t even care for Rodgers but in today’s NFL if you have a chance to win now you do it. If theyd had the number one pick and an Andrew Luck or Manning type sitting there then you take him but that mid first round pick could have been all the Packers needed to beat the Bucks. They jumped the gun and now even if Rodgers stays by the time you see what Love has you’ll have wasted most if not all of his rookie deal. As the article stated had Favre not been teetering on retirement they would have gotten Favre help not drafted his replacement(albeit a HOG one).
After last year’s draft, Adams was shocked they didn’t draft another WR. He’s not jealous of losing targets, he wants to win like AR.
Exactly.
Rodgers is one of the best QB’s of all time and he has one of the best WR’s in the league and one of the top RB’s. You can always have more weapons but this idea that Rodgers doesn’t have weapons is ridiculous. Brady has won Super Bowls with a lot less weapons.
Aside from Adams, their second best receiver was Robert Tonyan (TE, 52 receptions), followed by Aaron Jones (RB, 47 receptions). Adams had caught 115 passes and the next-best WR, Valdes-Scantling, had only 33.
They have no other even decent WRs aside from Adams, and this is not a new problem. In 2019, Adams had 83 catches and the next best receiver had 35. 2018, same thing, Adams with 111 receptions and the next best receiver had 38. Yet in 2019 and 2020, they did not draft a single receiver. A glaring problem and they ignored it and instead drafted replacements for Rodgers and Jones.
Thank you & well said. I’m not pro/against the team or player, but my god, they’ve never tried to help him at all.
And yet somehow they still had one of the best offenses in the entire league. Everyone seems to forget their top-5 offensive line that gives Rodgers all day to sit back there until he decides to throw the ball out of bounds. He’s got plenty of weapons. Yeah he could have another 1st round receiver, but at what cost? Jaire Alexander? Elgton Jenkins?
He’s just got to stop choking in a large percentage of the big games he plays in. Look at his numbers in NFC title games. Why didn’t he run on 3rd down last NFC championship, or at least accept some of the blame rather than constantly ripping his coach for the (admittedly stupid) decision to kick a FG on 4th down?
I’m so done with this guy and his ego, his whining, and his sense of entitlement. And I’m a Packer fan!
Do you think that a rookie receiver contract would keep the Packers from signing Alexander? That’s just dumb. Doing something stupid like re-signing Kevin King, Dean Lowry, or Tyler Lancaster might. Or having Preston Smith on the roster. Or re-signing your back for more than the cost of the franchise tag after drafting his replacement. This might just be a hunch, but it seems like Rodgers would give some wiggle room if the current administration gave him reason to trust their capabilities.
You keep saying that Rodgers has weapons and that his offense is good. Okay, fine, the offense is good. Let’s pretend that he does have all the weapons in the world. Why would you refuse to improve your options? “Oh no, we can’t be too good, that’d make us look desperate.” What kind of team refuses to improve just to spite a player?
It’s not like the Packers are using any of that money wisely. The defense is middling, and they two thousand yard players career-wise on their roster, despite your mind-boggling attempts to prove that the offense is loaded. If I’m a defense, I’m stuffing the box to stop Jones (not too hard) and doubling Adams (slightly harder) every play. Where does the ball go? That’s what Tampa did, because their defense was just better than Green Bay’s offense. Rodgers doesn’t want that to keep happening, as it has been for years (like in San Francisco). They need to not just be “good”, they need to be a team that can beat contenders. But yeah, sure, blame him for that…not the team who didn’t draft a single starter last year.
100%
If there ever was a candidate for the Packers to franchise tag, Adam’s is it. He isn’t going anywhere.
Why sign when the next ‘best’ QB was a 3rd stringer?
A non-story. Ever see a receiver go on a radio show and say he hates his current QB? Of course not.
Adams is going to sound supportive – but if it’s a choice between getting HIS next big contract or whether the Packer’s offer Rodger’s another whopper at Adams’ expense…
Terell Owens. Constantly
Adams is simply trying to exploit the Rodgers situation to gain a little leverage for his own financial negotiations. It’s a legitimate business tactic. I doubt he’d care who completed passes to him as long as he was adequately compensated in dollars.
Lazard is the receiver to lock up now.