Davante Adams was traded to the Raiders. (1:45) If you thought the beginning of the league year would be quiet in the NFL, think again. Thursday night's trade of Eagles defensive tackle Fletcher Cox and the request for a trade of Baker Mayfield by the Cleveland Browns qualifies for a big day on the football calendar. The Packers traded their star receiver to Las Vegas just days after signing Rodgers to a huge extension. Las Vegas traded its first and second-round picks to Green Bay to get Davante Adams, the best receiver in football. Reports after the fact suggested that the relationship between Adams and the Packers was irreparably fractured after Green Bay used the franchise tag to retain Adams. At least for now, Allen Lazard is the top receiver. I don't like that the Packers are trading away Rodgers at a point when they are all-in for a title. The Packers are crying out for an impact, and I am sure Brian Gutekunst will add a wideout or two in the months to come, with guys like William Fuller V still available in free agency and a talented crop of wideouts available in the draft. If Adams were willing to retire or sit out multiple franchise tags, there wouldn't be much they could have done. I might have been willing to push things if they had been able to smooth things over with Rodgers. I want to focus on the Las Vegas side of things. I am not sure if we will look back on this deal in three years and think the Raiders are happy about it. You have to make a lot of assumptions to get this to work out for them. It is easy to poke holes in assumptions. I don't think I can fault the Raiders for taking a swing on a Hall of Fame caliber wide receiver, but the more I think about it, the more I don't like it. If I were a Raiders fan, I would be skeptical in counting on those assumptions. Adams is considered the best receiver in football by the Raiders. They are giving him a five-year deal worth more than $150 million, which will make him the highest paid wide receiver in the world. Adams was asking for $30 million per season as a response to DeAndre, but those deals are not apples and oranges. The money was added to the end of his deal, which had three years left. Adams is getting a lot of money from this new contract. The top of the market for a new multiyear deal was $20 million per season. Adams has increased that to $28.6 million per season. I like to use money earned over the first three years of a deal as a measure of a contract's actual value, and the top mark was Jones at $64 million. I think he will blow that three-year mark away because his guaranteed money is already higher. The Raiders sent first- and second-round picks to acquire Adams, which have significant surplus value. We have seen organizations value picks towards the top of the second round. The Raiders are giving up two valuable assets in exchange for the Packers' two picks. Even if we were conservative and valued the two picks at $25 million, the Raiders are paying over 30 million dollars per season for Adams. It is likely to cost more in the years to come than any wide receiver in football. If Adams is the best wide receiver in football over the next several seasons, the Raiders can break even on this deal. That is possible. Adams is amazing. Adams gets himself more wide open than any other receiver on the planet, week after week. You would make this deal in a heartbeat if you could keep that for five years. So would I. Can you really think that it will be the case? Adams only played one full season over the past five years. He did not play in the meaningless Week 17 game against the Lions. He has missed a total of nine games over the last five years, but it would be foolish to assume he will be available week-in, week-out for years to come. That isn't a red flag, but it is a slight damper on his value. There is age. Adams is 29 years old. He turns 30 in the year 2022. You can argue that Adams isn't your typical 29-year-old, but who else wasn't a normal 29-year-old? Jones led the league in receiving yards in his age 29 season. Jones had a foot injury earlier in his career, but he had no major injuries over his previous five seasons. Jones did not seem to be slowing down. Then he did. Jones racked up 1,394 yards and six touchdown in 2019. He missed seven games in 2020 with injuries. He was traded for cap reasons and only managed . TheTitans cut Jones to free up cap space this past week, one year after acquiring him for a second-round pick. Three years ago, that would not have been possible. Keyshawn Johnson looked at the future of the football player after he was released by theTitans. Jones is only one wide receiver, so that is an anecdote. Adams was a Pro Bowler last year. So was Jones. 38 wide receivers have been named to the Pro Bowl in their age 29 seasons, leaving aside wideouts who made it for special teams contributions. How many stayed at that level for a long time? The answer is not a lot because of the use of fantasy points as a proxy for wide receiver performance. Of the 38 wide receivers who were stars at 29, 24 did not perform up to par. Tim Brown, Reggie Wayne, A.J. Green, and Larry Fitzgerald are some of the Hall of Fame-caliber wideouts. Gary Clark and Chad Johnson were perennially top-five or top-10 wideouts. The players faded for other reasons. They all suffered career-ending injuries. Calvin Johnson decided to retire. Antonio Brown has done the same things over the past few years. I hope Adams stays healthy and plays well for a long time, but there is always a risk for veterans. Four players have managed multiple top-five seasons after age 29: Jerry Rice, Marvin Harrison, Jerry Owens and Cris Carter. We would have said the same thing about Fitzgerald or Jones or Wayne, and not one of them was able to make it back to those heights. Rice was coming off of six consecutive top-two seasons and still had four more to go, but none of the guys on this list should be compared to him. It would be a pleasant surprise if Adams had more than one top-five performance at wide receiver. The Raiders expect Adams to be that type of player for the next several seasons. The odds are against him. I will not make the argument that Rodgers carried Adams, because that is just bottom-of-the-barrel sports talk. Rodgers benefited from playing with Adams. We have been talking about their natural connection for a long time. It would be foolish to think that is not meaningful. Tracking signings, more
• Early winners, losers » | Top teams »
• Top 100 » | Guide » | Fantasy spin »
More NFL free agency coverage »
Assumption No. 1: Adams will be a superstar for years to come
Assumption No. 2: Adams will be able to sustain his greatness after losing Rodgers
Adams and other quarterbacks in Green Bay have not been as good as Carr. He has been thrown 72 passes by six different quarterbacks, and not much of a sample from which to make a decision. Adams has averaged 2.0 yards per route run over his career with Rodgers in the lineup and 1.7 yards per route run without him. Adams has averaged more than two yards per route run with Rodgers as his quarterback.
Adams will be playing with Carr in Las Vegas. I have no doubt that the two formed a bond in college, but Carr is not the same type of passer as Rodgers. The Packers legend is an incredible passer who finds ways to get the ball to his receiver from impossible angles. Carr is a good pocket passer who does a great job before the snap. Carr makes off-schedule throws, but even he would probably admit that is not his forte.
Adams is going to be competing for targets in the Raiders passing attack. I am sure new coach Josh McDaniels will make sure Adams sees a lot of footballs, but Vegas already has two players who see a lot of targets in slot receiver Hunter Renfrow and tight endDarren Waller. The Packers didn't have two receivers who could compete with Renfrow and Waller. Adams will hopefully make those guys more efficient, and the Raiders needed an X receiver, but I don't think their biggest need was a guy to rack up 175 targets.
I think there is another important distinction to be made about needs. It would be one thing if this were a championship caliber team acquiring Adams to fill out the weak spot on the roster. I am not sure if the Raiders fit that bill.
Raiders fans have the right to be happy about how their season ended. The Raiders won four in a row at the end of the season, after a difficult year that saw Jon Gruden fired as head coach and Henry Rugg III arrested for his role in a fatal car crash. They made it to the playoffs for the second time. They lost in the wild-card round, but they gave the eventual conference champion a tough fight.
All of that is true, but it is a very generous interpretation of what the Raiders looked like this past season. They got to play three games against teams with compromised quarterback situations because they were sitting at 6-7 after the 48-9 loss to the Chiefs. They beat the Broncos backup Drew Lock 17-13 and then kicked a field goal to beat the Colts starter, who was only hours removed from the COVID-19 list. It's possible that none of those guys are on those teams anymore. In Week 18 of the season, the Raiders secured a playoff spot with a dramatic win over the Bolts, but they fell to the Bengals.
The Raiders were not a very good team in 2021. The other three teams in their division were ranked higher than them in the league. Carr's offense was down by 65 points.
The Raiders went 7-2 in games decided by seven points or less, something they have not been able to do in the past. The last time they were that good was in 2016 when they went 8-1 in one-score games. They were obvious picks to decline and went 6-10 with a 4-3 record in one-score games. Mark Davis fired Jack del Rio, hired Jon Gruden and traded away the team's young core after the disastrous falloff. The Raiders think they are the most likely team to decline.
All of that is based on what happened a year ago. The situation on the ground might have gotten worse for the Raiders if the Broncos had traded for Russell Wilson. The Raiders were able to sweep the Broncos a year ago, but the chances of beating a Broncos team with Wilson at the helm twice aren't the same as they were with Lock and Teddy Bridgewater under center. Wilson is an upgrade at the most important position in sports.
McShay's rankings are:
• Mocks: Kiper » | McShay » | Reid »
• Meet the QBs » | Intriguing teams »
• Full draft order » | First Draft podcast »
• More coverage » | Full rankings »
Adams is a dramatic upgrade on the likes of Zay Jones and Bryan Edwards, but it would be naive to think that adding a superstar quarterback is the same thing. The Broncos are going to top any wide receiver, edge rusher, or corner they add with the addition of Wilson. Adams makes the Raiders a better football team, but he is not likely to turn them into a Super Bowl contender.
The Raiders still have long odds of winning their division, even though Adams helped push Vegas forward. The Raiders are a long way behind the other teams in the division. Their odds of winning the Super Bowl are 5000, which is tied for 19th in the NFL. There are ten different teams in the AFC that have shorter odds of winning the trophy. Is that the sort of team that should be trading a first- and second-round pick to get a 29-year-old wide receiver?
The Rams won a Super Bowl and built part of their core by trading away first-round picks. Over the past few years, they have made several trades for superstars, but none of them fit with what the Raiders did here.
The Rams have traded first-round picks multiple times for players who were either entering the league or entering the prime of their careers. When the Rams made that move, they traded for quarterback, Brandin Cooks, and defensive back, Jalen Ramsey. Adams is at a different point in his career than those guys are.
The Rams increased the ante last year. The Lions received two first-round picks and luggage in exchange for Matthew Stafford. Stafford, the first overall pick in 2009, turned 33 just before the deal was finalized. Again, quarterbacks are different. They cost more and are harder to come by than players at any other position. The trade market for passers is different than the trade market for wide receivers. Ask the Colts about the two trades they made.
The Rams made other moves that cost less in terms of draft capital for veterans. They signed Beckham to a one-year deal. Snead sent the Broncos two second- and third-round picks in order to get Von Miller. Neither player needed a new contract to get a first-round pick. The Rams acquired two veterans, paid them close to the minimum, and will get picks when they sign elsewhere.
A non-quarterback who is about to turn 30 is being paid significant draft capital and a market-surpassing contract by the Raiders. The Rams did not make a deal like that to build a Super Bowl winner. The Rams made a trip to the Super Bowl before trading for Stafford, as they had gone 43-21 over the previous four seasons. The Raiders have been over that time period.
The trade for Davante Adams is beneficial to the Raiders.
The Raiders have been trying to fill this need for a wideout for a long time. This organization has devoted a lot of resources to finding a game-changer on the outside since their last playoff win in 2002, when they had the legendary duo of Rice and Tim Brown as their two starting wideouts. Virtually every move has gone wrong.
The trade was for Randy Moss. The Vikings got Moss from the Raiders in exchange for Napoleon Harris and the seventh overall pick. He went from an average of 84 receiving yards per game with the Vikings to 53.7 in Oakland. After two years with the Raiders, Moss was traded to the Pats for a fourth-round pick.
Javon Walker signed a five-year, $55 million deal in 2008. In his first season with the Raiders, Walker caught 15 passes for 196 yards and never played again.
The No. 7 pick was used on Darrius Heyward-Bey. He was cut after four seasons, and only once as a pro had he topped 400 receiving yards.
The No. 4 pick was used on Amari Cooper. Over the past 20 years, the Raiders have seen four 1,000-yard seasons from a wideout, and two of them have been from Cooper. They dealt him to the Cowboys for a first-round pick as part of the rebuild, and then used that pick on a box safety who has only begun to show signs of promise in his third pro season. The best duo the Raiders have had since Brown and Rice were Cooper and Michael Crabtree.
Nelson signed a two-year, $14 million deal. The Nelson move was seen as a coup, but the former Packers star averaged just 49.3 receiving yards per game in Oakland. He retired after one season.
Williams will get a four-year, $44 million pact. Williams was supposed to create a vertical passing attack. He battled injuries and was released after two seasons with
There is a trade for Antonio Brown. The Raiders sent two draft picks to the Steelers for one of the league's top wideouts, but you know how that turned out.
2020: Use the No. 11 pick. The Raiders didn't know what would happen with Ruggs, but his football career is over after a little more than one season.
The moves that made sense at the time have turned out to be disappointing. This doesn't mean that the Raiders should have passed on Adams, but it leads to another point.
I have seen a lot of this logic on social media. It doesn't add up for many reasons. The people who were making disappointing selections for the Raiders at the top of the draft over the past several years were Jon Gruden and Mike Mayock, and neither is still with the organization. The decisions to draft Heyward-Bey and sign Walker shouldn't be compared to the decision to commit significant resources toward Adams.
Tracking firings, hirings and openings.
• Grading each head coach hire »
Even if the Raiders kept their old regime in place for another year, past performance doesn't tell us how teams will draft in the future. After taking multiple Hall of Famers at the beginning of John Schneider's tenure, the Seahawks struggled to find talented players for years afterwards. After hitting on quarterback Mac Jones and defensive tackle Christian Barmore last year, the Patriots have had brilliant drafts and stretches where they haven't been as effective. Newsome used first-round picks on Reed and Suggs in Baltimore, and then Kyle and Mark were selected in the second and third rounds, respectively. We don't get enough sample on general managers to learn anything about how effective they are as drafters, and the ones who last decades run hot and cold.
This trade is being framed as a choice between Adams and a player who will probably not be as good as Adams. Adams will be making a lot of money. Whoever the Raiders drafted with the 22nd pick will make less than $4 million over the next four years. It is not Adams vs. a draft pick, but rather Adams vs. a draft pick.
The draft pick is not a sure thing, but it has to be a borderline starter to live up to expectations. Adams needs to be the best player at his position to hold up his end of the bargain. If you use the pick to get Adams, you have to find talent below market value elsewhere. The best way to do that is in the modern NFL. The Raiders are more dependent on mid- and late-round picks turning into useful starters around Adams now that they have traded these picks for one player.
Let's say the Raiders decided that they would rather have a talented veteran over a draft pick. Is the position of wide receiver where the Raiders need to add a star? If the Raiders were going to use those picks on a known quantity, they would need to address their offensive line or hit corner.
This is the same logic that was used by the Seattle fans when they traded two first-round picks for a safety. The move looks like a disaster for the Seahawks. You cannot win a Super Bowl without contributions from players you have drafted and developed. The two best players for the Rams in their run to the Super Bowl were Donald and Kupp. Both were drafted by the Rams.
This one is easy. Without the cap, the Packers would have been able to re-sign Adams to whatever deal he wanted without having to use the franchise tag. The Packers never have a reason to antagonize Adams if the cap was a sham.
The new guys running the Raiders should have time to show their skills. We haven't seen what their first roster will look like, and this is the first time that McDaniels and Ziegler have had in Vegas. I am not going to give any conclusions about the Raiders and what their future holds.
I keep coming back to one thing as I think about this trade. The vast majority of the careers of the two men have been spent working under Bill Belichick. The team has made some mistakes in their player evaluation over the years, but they get a lot more right than they do wrong. The Raiders hired these two guys because of what they did in New England, despite the fact that they ran as the football czar in Denver.
I'm pretty sure that if he were running the Raiders right now, he wouldn't have made this trade. It is almost the opposite of what the coach does. When he traded for Moss, he demanded that Moss cut his salary in half to $3 million. The star running back came in on a reduced contract when he was traded for a second-round pick.
This type of draft capital has never been traded away for a player like Adams. He only traded a first-round pick for a veteran once, when he sent one to the Saints for Cooks, who was in the middle of a rookies deal. Cooks was traded to the Rams for a first-round pick. He hasn't combined that sort of trade with his new acquisition making him the highest-paid player at his position, let alone one turning 30.
The rest of the experts break down the class.
• First Draft podcast »
On the other side of the coin, the Packers have dealt disgruntled stars or players exiting the prime of their careers for premium picks or even just for cap space, and this has been done many times by Belichick. He has never regretted those moves. The Vikings cut Moss after four games, and the first-round pick and third-round pick that Belichick got for him were for Branch. He traded defensive tackle Richard Seymour to the Raiders for a first-round pick and later sent guard Logan Mankins to the Buccaneers for a fourth-round pick. Wes Welker, Lawyer Milloy, Ty Law, andNate Solder were let go by the coach. I think he would take the Jones trade back if he could, but I think the Packers would have been better off taking the Packers side of the trade.
The Raiders may be proved correct in the long run. I am sure there will be games in which Adams is worth a lot of money. It is fun to have players like Davante Adams on your team. Everything has to be right to make this trade work in the big picture. Adams needs to be a star for a long time. The Raiders need to make a deep run in the playoffs. The organization needs to make up for the missing picks.
Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it likely? I don't like Las Vegas.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
