Bill Huber
GREEN BAY, Wis. – It’s got to be the shoes.
Former Green Bay Packers receiver Davante Adams hopped on Instagram on Friday afternoon. The focal point of the photo he posted?
Could there be a reunion between the Packers, who have some significant questions at receiver, and the Hall of Fame-worthy receiver? Or was Adams only having some social-media fun?
The Packers traded Adams to the Las Vegas Raiders before the 2022 NFL Draft. After catching 100 passes for the Raiders in 2022 and 103 passes in 2023, he was traded to the New York Jets early this season to reunite with Aaron Rodgers. In 11 games in New York, he caught 67 passes for 854 yards and seven touchdowns.
The 11th-year pro, who turned 32 in December, went over 100 career touchdowns this season.
Adams’ future remains murky. If Rodgers and the Jets give it another go with new coach Aaron Glenn, Adams might opt for another season in New York. If not, Adams almost certainly will be on the move, whether it’s a release or trade.
Either way, Adams’ $35.64 million base salary for 2025 and 2026 will be restructured or torn up.
Also murky is the Packers’ short- and long-term future at receiver.
Coming off an electric last-season run in 2023 that included the demolition of the Dallas Cowboys in the wild-card playoffs, the Packers appeared to have one of the hot young receiver corps with Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed and Dontayvion Wicks.
That group did not take a step forward in 2024, though. Further complicating matters, Watson’s torn ACL will sideline him for the first half of the 2025 season, Doubs is coming off a season that included one suspension and two concussions, Reed disappeared for most of the second half of the season and Wicks dropped a bunch of passes in the first half of the season.
The strength of the group is the numbers. That strength deteriorated when Watson and Doubs were out, though.
General manager Brian Gutekunst must determine if that core group, with the potential addition of a premium draft pick, will be good enough, or if he needs to make a bold move and acquire a veteran receiver to help quarterback Jordan Love take the next step.
“I think I’d like them all to elevate,” Gutekunst said at the end of the season. “The best one I was around was that (20)09-10 stage, where Donald (Driver) was still here, but Greg (Jennings) was probably if you had to say there was one (No. 1 receiver), but I don’t even know if you’d say that. There were so many good players (and) there were some emerging guys like Jordy (Nelson) and James (Jones).
“So, I know the term No. 1 receiver gets thrown around a lot and I think that just depends what that means to you. I’d like our football team to get to a point where we can win in situational football better than we have right now. I think for us to do that, that group’s going to have to take some steps, and I think they will. They’re on the right track. Again, we’re dealing with some injury stuff that these guys will have to get through before next season, but they are on the right track.”
During a recent appearance on FanDuel Sportsbook’s Up And Adams, Adams told host Kay Adams that the Packers “might need some receiver help.”
Last April, with Love coming off his sensational final stretch to his debut season, Adams raved about Love’s performance during an appearance on teammate Max Crosby’s podcast.
“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 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.’”
In eight seasons in Green Bay, the 2014 second-round pick caught 669 passes for 8,121 yards and 73 touchdowns. He led the NFL with 18 receiving touchdowns and 98.1 receiving yards per game in 2020, when he earned the first of three consecutive first-team All-Pro honors.
Adams, who needs 43 catches to reach 1,000 for his career, has plenty of juice in his game. Could a reunion help the Packers take the big step forward they failed to take in 2024?
“I think historically if you look at a lot of the teams, very rarely do teams that have one receiver that’s super-heavy with targets, that doesn’t usually play out well for playoffs and success there,” Gutekunst said.
“But I think we’re looking for these guys that we have currently to take a step into that role where they are more consistent on the down-down basis. Certainly, if there’s somebody outside of our building, whether it’s the draft, free agency, that makes some sense for us, we’ll certainly look to do that, but we’re also looking for these guys to continue to grow and hopefully grow into that space.”
