Per Adams, Green Bay offered the receiver a $17 million per year contract going into training camp of the 2021 season.
One of the primary characters in Netflix’s “Receiver” documentary series has been former Green Bay Packers wide receiver Davante Adams, who is now a Las Vegas Raider. Due to the fact that the series followed him around for the 2023 season, Adams has been making the rounds on media outlets during this dead period before training camp, which included a stop on FOX’s podcast “All Facts No Breaks,” hosted by former NFL receiver Keyshawn Johnson.
One of the topics touched on in Johnson and Adams’ conversation was why Adams left Green Bay, which ultimately stemmed from him being unwilling to sign the franchise tag that the Packers placed on him. Johnson, who played with 18 different quarterbacks during his professional career, was baffled that Adams would be willing to leave the side of then-Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, a future Hall of Famer.
“It sound real good, but it’s a whole lot that go into it,” said Adams before hinting a possible non-“Receivers” documentary coming out that will make people feel differently about the situation. According to Adams, the Packers’ final offer to Adams before the 2021 season — his last year in Green Bay — was a $17 million per year extension. For perspective, the top deal at the position at that time was DeAndre Hopkins’ two-year, $54.5 million extension, which averaged out to $27.35 million per year.
That deal offered pay jumps into years in the future, though, as Hopkins was already under contract for three more seasons with the Arizona Cardinals, who had just recently traded for the wideout. Hopkins never played on those extension seasons, as he was released by the Cardinals after three years in Arizona. He has since signed with the Tennessee Titans.
Ultimately, Adams played out the final season on his deal in 2021, was hit with the franchise tag by the Packers and was later traded to the Raiders for several high draft picks. With the Raiders, Adams signed a five-year, $140 million contract that pays him an average salary of $28 million.
What’s interesting here, from a Packers perspective, is the question of how much the team values the receiver position. Last year, Green Bay had the cheapest receiver unit in the league. In 2024, that will be no different, as they return a group of rookie contract receivers. If they thought that anything above $17 million was too much for an All-Pro pass-catcher, have their feelings changed now that the market has almost doubled that?
We’re still a few years down the line, but receivers Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs will be heading into contract seasons next year. If Adams was a sign of things to come, it could be difficult for general manager Brian Gutekunst to get those wideouts inked to new extensions, if the team simply believes that veteran receivers aren’t as valuable as the NFL market has determined.
Following the trade of Adams to Las Vegas, reports surfaced that the Packers’ final offer to Adams — in the 2022 offseason — was more substantial than he received with the Raiders. It’s uncertain how the team would have structured such a deal, though, as Green Bay would have even had difficulty in signing their rookie draft class in 2022 had Adams played on the tag — which was one reason why the Packers traded Adams: to get his cap hit off their books.
You can listen to the clip of Adams talking to Johnson in the tweet linked down below:
