The 90 to 1 Green Bay Packers roster countdown: No. 2 – Davante Adams
The Green Bay Packers, and their 90 players on the roster, are in the midst of their first training camp under coach Matt LaFleur. In an annual tradition from my 11 years at Packer Report, I rank the players in order of importance from No. 90 to No. 1. This isn’t just a listing of the team’s best players. Our rankings take into account talent, importance of the position, depth at the position, salary and draft history. More than the ranking, we hope you learn something about each player. (Note: The start of this series can be found with my former employer.)
No. 2: WR Davante Adams ($10,850,000 cap)
The Packers’ passing attack last season was unlike anything seen during the Aaron Rodgers era.
Adams was targeted 169 times, only one behind Atlanta’s Julio Jones. Had Adams not missed the last game of the season, he almost certainly would have been the most-targeted player in the league by a double-digits margin.
From 2008 through 2017 – the time corresponding with Rodgers’ first 10 seasons as the starter – only Jordy Nelson (152 targets in 2016 and 151 targets in 2014) was targeted more than 140 times. For further context, Adams was targeted a whopping 80 more times than the next player on the roster, Jimmy Graham. The previous largest disparity? The 38-target difference between Greg Jennings and James Jones in 2010. Three times, the difference was six targets or less.
Heading into 2019, Marquez Valdes-Scantling is a year older. Graham is back and potentially a better fit in Matt LaFleur’s offense. Geronimo Allison is back after missing most of last season. But don’t expect the passing attack to be any less Adams-centric. That’s what Rodgers said in the offseason and that’s what’s been evident on the practice field.
“I’d like to throw to Davante more. He’s that open,” Rodgers said. “We’ve got to keep finding ways to get him the ball. There’s nothing wrong with having a go-to guy who’s that dynamic and trying to find ways to get him the ball. I think obviously we need complementary pieces in place. But I’m not going to shy away from throwing the ball to Davante.”
Adams was sensational last season. He finished sixth in the league with 111 receptions, seventh with 1,386 yards and second with 13 touchdowns. He’s the only player in the league with three consecutive seasons of 70-plus receptions and 10-plus touchdowns. In fact, over the past 10 seasons, he’s one of only 12 players to do it three times.
Defenses know where the ball is going but are unable to prevent Adams from getting into the end zone. Last season, he joined Sterling Sharpe and Don Hutson as the only players in Packers history with three consecutive seasons of 10-plus touchdown receptions.
With his at-the-line repertoire, strength and leaping ability, he is a force in the red zone. He led the NFL with 12 red-zone touchdowns last season, turning 12 of his 14 red-zone catches into six points. Over the last three seasons, he has 26 red-zone touchdown receptions. Only Pittsburgh’s Antonio Brown and Houston’s DeAndre Hopkins have more total touchdowns than Adams does in the red zone during that period.
Now that’s dominant.
With back-to-back Pro Bowls, Adams has solidified his place as one of the league’s top players – he was No. 35 on NFL Network’s annual list – and the next great Packers receiver.
“His athleticism is something that is very rare,” Nelson said upon announcing that he had officially retired with the franchise. “And then it just became for him to figure out how to use it consistently and maximize what he has. That’s being aggressive at the line. You can ask him, he wasn’t too fond of me early on in his career. He thought I hated him because he sat beside me in the meeting room and I made him pay attention. And then he told me a couple weeks ago that now he knows how I felt. You could see the flashes. You could see his quickness, his ability to run after the catch, all the stuff people have seen the past couple of years. The difference between becoming a good player and a great player is doing it consistently, week in and week out. I think everyone can have kind of a flash in the pan. For him to do it steadily is what puts you at the next level.”
As Nelson observed, Adams has gone from understudy to leader of the group. In five seasons, he has 348 receptions and 39 touchdowns. Valdes-Scantling, Allison, Equanimeous St. Brown, and the rest of the receivers have a combined 132 receptions and eight touchdowns. With that, the passing attack will go as far as Adams can take them as a player and leader.
“I feel like accountability is the biggest thing, it’s the biggest teacher,” Adams said. “A guy makes a mistake, it’s going to happen. But how can you hold yourself accountable or hold the guy next to you without feeling attacked by him or sensitive that you’re getting picked on? When I go in the room and I’m preaching to them, handling business, practicing the right way, I tell them if you see me slip, I expect the same thing from you. It’s not a one-way thing. This is definitely not a dictatorship. I’m not out here just trying to talk it; I have to walk it like I talk it. When I get out there, that’s why I try to do the right thing – finish and pick up blocks, do whatever we have to do because if I’m not doing it, it definitely takes away from credibility as a leader.”
