Packers Will Miss Rodgers-Adams Connection Most of All

The Green Bay Packers will find a talented receiver to replace Davante Adams. What that player won't have, and might never have, is the wink-and-nod connection with Aaron Rodgers.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Armed with four of the top 59 picks in the 2022 NFL Draft, the Green Bay Packers potentially can find a receiver as skilled as Davante Adams.

Armed with salary-cap space, the Packers potentially can find a receiver as savvy as Adams.

What they won’t find – and probably will never have again – is a receiver with the connection and chemistry that Rodgers had with Aaron Rodgers. Together, they drove the offense – and the team – to sustained success.

Rodgers is a four-time MVP and one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. The passing game will function without Adams because Rodgers and coach Matt LaFleur will make it work. While Adams was blessed to grow and mature alongside Rodgers, Rodgers was blessed to have a go-to star like Adams. Adams is talented, yes, but he took note of how Jordy Nelson and Rodgers worked together and wanted to form that same two-as-one harmony. And he did.

The receiver(s) the Packers draft in a little more than 40 days not only will have no connection with Rodgers but they won’t be able to watch and learn from Adams. Adams spent four years alongside Nelson and was ready for the passing of the torch, though at least Randall Cobb is here to serve as a role model.

Two plays from last season demonstrate the uncanny connection built between future Hall of Fame receiver and future Hall of Fame quarterback that the Packers just won’t have in 2022.

At Chicago in October, the Packers were clinging to a 17-14 lead midway through the fourth quarter. Rodgers famously put the game away with his “I own you” touchdown run, but that play wouldn’t have happened without a 41-yard completion to Adams.

On second-and-10 from their 38, Rodgers saw the Bears’ coverage. Adams’ saw the Bears coverage. And with nothing more than a nod as the play clock was winding down, they went in their way-back machine and unearthed a Mike McCarthy-era adjustment.

“That’s what makes us special, man,” Adams said a few days later.

That special connection was built on countless thousands of reps during practices and games. More than that, it was built on countless outside-the-meeting-room conversations. So, in the heat of the moment, they were prepared to run an adjustment that doesn’t even exist in the playbook.

“Recall is being able to do something on the spot with a second left on the play clock,” Adams said. “He’s talked to me a lot about that and allowed me to train myself. You’ve obviously got to be ready but there are certain times where I’ll be looking through the game plan and I’ll see a certain play and I’ll be like, ‘You know, that play may not work, but we may be putting it in for a certain audible off of that play.’ So, I start training my brain in that moment: What are certain things he would want to get to if we get Cover 0, if we got Cover 1? It’s a lot of pointless things that you may never use it, it may just be a waste of five minutes of time, but I’d rather be prepared and be ready for that moment just in case it comes.”

On Christmas against Cleveland, Rodgers and Adams connected for their 66th and 67th touchdowns, breaking the Rodgers-to-Nelson record as the most prolific duo in Packers history.

“He’s a fantastic player. He gives you so many great plays during a game,” Rodgers said that night. “On the touchdown to break the record, his was a really freelance route. That’s what makes him so great is his creativity within the system. When I looked over at him on the left, I was almost going to give him a signal to make sure we are on the same page, but something – intuition, whatever – said don’t do it. Just trust it. And he didn’t do what basically is on-the-paper football offense. He lost his guy quickly and they brought empty pressure. He did exactly what I would have wanted to tell him but there wasn’t even a signal that could’ve even come close to the beauty and the creativity of that route. It’s one of those fun moments.”

Rodgers and Adams spent the last eight years together. Rodgers won MVPs in 2014, 2020 and 2021 and the Packers advanced to NFC Championship Games in 2014, 2016, 2019 and 2020. In 2021, Adams set single-season franchise records with 123 receptions and 1,553 yards.

Adams became the first player in NFL history with 115-plus catches, 1,350-plus receiving yards and 11-plus receiving touchdowns in back-to-back seasons. And he joined Marvin Harrison and Larry Fitzgerald as the only players with 650-plus catches, 8,000-plus receiving yards and 70-plus receiving touchdowns in their first eight seasons.

“I’ve played with some great ones over the years,” Rodgers said after the Cleveland game. “Obviously, Brett Favre, incredible player, all-time great; Charles Woodson, the same and the way he could dominate on the field from a defensive back position was incredible. Jordy Nelson, him and I always had such a great connection.

“But when you start stacking up the numbers for Davante, it’s mind-blowing. I really feel like he’s the best player I’ve played with, and I said that to him the other night, actually. I was just thinking about him and having a lot of gratitude for our friendship and the fact I get to play with him for so many years now. I just felt like I wanted to tell him that because it’s true.”

It was a touching gesture between two record-setting stars, the legendary quarterback and the legend-in-the-making receiver.

“It caught me off-guard when he texted me that the other day,” Adams said, “because I feel like what we don’t do enough as men in general is express the way we feel about one another or about the way he feels, whether it’s good or bad. So, to hear something like that out of the blue – there was no conversation that led up to it or anything like that, it was just strictly from his heart, something he was thinking about – it means a lot to me as a player.”

Now, Adams will go to Las Vegas, where he has some chemistry with Raiders quarterback Derek Carr from their days at Fresno State.

And Rodgers, fresh off signing a contract extension with the Packers, will have to get by on the connections he has with Allen Lazard and Cobb while forming new bonds with new receivers in hopes of finally getting back to another Super Bowl.

“I told him in the locker room,” Rodgers said after that aforementioned game at Chicago, “the thing that I will miss 20 years down the line is moments where you make a subtle adjustment, you look over at the guy and it’s a stud like 17 and he just went like this (head nod). Like the whole body started tingling. I just knew it was going to be one of those special plays.”

It is that element, more than the making-legends-cry route-running, how-did-he-catch-it hands and desire-to-“murder”-cornerbacks personality, that will be missed most of all.

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