Aaron Rodgers Says He Didn’t ‘Recruit’ Davante Adams to Stay With Packers

The Green Bay quarterback told reporters “I feel like I've got to recruit a guy like that back to the Packers, I've already lost.”

Nearly three months have passed since the Packers traded wide receiver Davante Adams to the Raiders.

In the move, Adams earned a new contract worth $141.25 million over five years, earning $28.25 million a season and becoming the NFL’s highest-paid wide receiver. Adams’s trade to Las Vegas was one that left many shocked due to the close relationship between the star wideout and quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

However, when Rodgers was asked if he tried to recruit Adams into staying in Green Bay before the blockbuster trade, the four-time MVP said while the two were in constant contact, he didn’t try and recruit his favorite target to stay in Green bay. 

“We were talking every single day,” Rodgers told Ryan Woods of the Green Bay Press-Gazette. “If I feel like I've got to recruit a guy like that back to the Packers, I've already lost.”

Rodgers caught heat after the Packers traded Adams as the deal came a couple of weeks after the star quarterback announced he was returning to Green Bay. However, Adams said during his Las Vegas introductory press that the deal was simply an “idea” until the trade was done, citing his level of play with Rodgers and what the two were able to do in Green Bay.

“I’ll never take away anything from what Green Bay gave me, what Aaron [Rodgers] gave me. It was an amazing opportunity to work over there and do what I did for almost a decade,” Adams said. “Things change sometimes.”

Even with his star receiver out west, Rodgers says he plans on spending the rest of his career in Green Bay. He enters the 2022 season with a new threat at receiver in North Dakota State’s Christian Watson, a player who Green Bay moved up 19 spots to grab in the second round this year’s draft.

Last season, Rodgers threw for 4,115 yards and 37 touchdowns in 16 games.

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