In his latest visit to the Kay Adams show, Davante Adams revealed that he hasn’t spoken to Antonio Pierce since the head coach made the ‘players made business decisions’ quote after their loss to the Panthers – and now, Adams wants to be traded from the Raiders, according to NFL Network.
Seems like the Raiders are upset with Adams (see also Pierce’s quote), and not helping is that Pierce apparently liked a social media post intimating the receiver had played his last game in Vegas.
So now, we have Brandon Aiyuk 2.0, and so G&D wonder: should Washington be interested?
“Remember, he essentially forced his way off of the Green Bay Packers when Aaron Rodgers left, and he went to the Raiders to play with Derek Carr, who's now in New Orleans, and he’s unhappy there,” Grant recalled. “Throughout the entire Netflix ‘Receiver’ series, he was not painted well; I'm sure part of that is the editing process, but he was a gigantic pain in the butt to deal with. He advocated for the benching of Jimmy Garoppolo, and wanted Josh McDaniels fired. He had some influence and some power, but just seemed like a malcontent didn't come off very well.”
That, in and of itself, is disappointing to Grant.
“This is one of my favorite players in the league for a long, long time, because I always thought he was kind of the anti-diva wide receiver,” GP said. “And clearly, the last couple of years, that has just not been the case. He's not happy; understandably, a lot of people that aren't happy in their job aren't good soldiers, and it seems like he has not really fallen in line.”
That said, Adams is a six-time Pro Bowler and three-time All-Pro, has four straight seasons with at least 100 catches and 1,100 yards, and twice led the NFL in touchdowns in that span – so he is one of the best, if not the best, receivers in the game of this generation.
And THAT all said…
“This would be more of a courtesy call, but I don’t think this one makes a lot of sense for Washington,” said Danny, who has been stumping for a receiver for months now. “I know that sounds crazy given my viewpoints, but that was before they averaged 40 points in the last two weeks. Back then it was simple: they had assets, they had salary cap space, they had draft picks available, and they chose to do very little at a dire position of need that directly affects their quarterback. I thought that was a huge unforced error, but I said it all day yesterday, I'm saying it today, and I'll say this often as it comes up: I was 100% wrong. They don't need to go all in just yet on a guy that you're gonna have to rework in terms of contract, because his next two years in terms of salary cap hits are that's just prohibitive, and I'm not necessarily that excited to do that for a guy that'll be 33.”
Danny admits the contract is a big part of it, perhaps the deal-breaker against the talent and the discontent, even as Grant thinks the Raiders might have to take some of that cap hit, or you would get Adams to sign him to a big extension and spread the cap hit out.
But, like his hilarious co-host, Mr. Paulsen still isn’t interested.
“My interest in him is, is very, very low. I would say almost zero,” was GP’s stance. “The money is a very small part of it for me, and maybe that's the difference. No. 1, he's been a complete malcontent for the better part of a couple of years, and I don't do that when I can avoid it. Number two, I don't think they run an offense where a guy like Davante Adams is gonna eat; the whole point of his annoyance on Netflix was, if I'm not a part of a great offense by catching a lot of passes, I'm not happy essentially. And I'm paraphrasing, but the gist was, if we're never punting and scoring a lot and I never catch the ball, I can find a way to be okay, but I get paid to catch passes, and if you're not giving me a chance to do, I don't like that very much. This offense is about playing point guard; one week, it's gonna be Noah Brown, the other week, it's gonna be Zaccheaus, and the beauty of having Terry McLaurin as your number one is that he never rocks the boat when he's unhappy. Bringing in an A-list wide receiver for this offense, the way they run the football a lot, throw the ball horizontally, the way Jayden Daniels operates kind of toward the sidelines, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. I just don't see it as a big fit, or even a necessity, before you throw the money into the equation.”