Packer Central

Jordan Love Responds to Davante Adams

At Green Bay Packers OTAs on Tuesday, Jordan Love had a chance to respond to former teammate Davante Adams calling him a “baller.”

Bill Huber

Jordan Love and Davante Adams at minicamp in 2021.
Jordan Love and Davante Adams at minicamp in 2021. / Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – A few weeks ago, former Green Bay Packers receiver Davante Adams called Jordan Love a “f***ing baller.” At Packers OTAs on Tuesday, Love expressed his appreciation.

“Yeah, that’s awesome,” Love said after practice. “Being able to hear and get some praise from Davante – he’s a guy I played with and have a lot of respect for – is awesome.”

Appearing a few weeks ago on teammate Maxx Crosby’s “The Rush” podcast, Adams said he had no regrets about requesting a trade to the Las Vegas Raiders.

Had Adams signed a contract extension in Green Bay, he would have had one more chance to play alongside Aaron Rodgers in 2022 before moving onto Love, an ascending star, in 2023. Instead, Adams got his wish in joining Derek Carr in Las Vegas. The Raiders went 6-11 in 2022 before jettisoning Carr, signing Jimmy Garoppolo and struggling to an 8-9 finish.

Garoppolo, Brian Hoyer and rookie Aidan O’Connell combined for 19 touchdowns and 18 interceptions last year. Meanwhile, Love was second in the NFL with 32 touchdown passes. He threw 18 touchdowns vs. one interception during his final eight games of the regular season to carry the Packers to the playoffs with a 9-8 record.

Nobody saw that coming – least of all Adams.

“At the time when I was there [in Green Bay], I hadn’t necessarily seen enough to say this is for sure what I should do,” Adams said. “But in hindsight, like we talked about, the kid is a f***ing baller, man. I’m so happy for him.

“I haven’t really had a chance to truly sit down and talk with him, but I want to tell him at some point like, ‘I definitely don’t regret changing [teams], but I’m super-proud of what you’ve done. If there’s a way I could pull you over here [to Las Vegas] and drag you with me like that, that would’ve been cool, too,’ because we saw what he did at the end of the year.

“I don’t regret what I did but, at the same time, you look back on it like, ‘Damn, that boy kind of balling right now.’”

Love took no offense.

“Not a lot of people knew what I was about,” he said. “I hadn’t played for three years. I got practice reps to be able to see, and that’s not a lot to go off of. Being able to go out there and put it on tape and kind of show everybody what I’m about and what this team’s about is awesome.

“But there’s no room to get complacent. You’ve got to be able to go out there and do it again and, obviously, there’s a lot of goals we didn’t reach last year and things that we’re striving to do this year, so there’s a lot of goals and expectations and things that we’re focusing on this year. There’s no room to get complacent.”

Crosby asked Adams if Love has done enough to “be the next one” at quarterback for the Packers.

“I think he is. I think he has shown that,” Adams responded. “He is starting to come into his own. You can see the way he is talking in front of media and everything. It’s like a whole different person than what I saw when I was there. That comes with experience.”

More Green Bay Packers News

Packers OTAs: Injury updates | Christian Watson’s asymmetry | Big goals but torn pectorals | Jordan Love’s focus | Day 1 starters | Five storylines | Battles on defense | Battles on offense 

Latest news: PFF’s QB rankings | NFL’s fastest | Incredible roster fact 

College coaches: Edgerrin Cooper | Javon Bullard | MarShawn Lloyd | Ty’Ron Hopper | Evan Williams | Jacob Monk | Kitan Oladapo | Michael Pratt | Kalen King

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.