Packers Going To Make Another Run at Signing Davante Adams

What a day it has been for Green Bay Packers fans. We get the news that Aaron Rodgers will be back for the 2021 season and although we heard on Friday that contract talks between Davante Adams and the Packers had broken down, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Green Bay is now going to try and make another run at signing their star wide receiver.

Coming off an All-Pro season in which Adams recorded almost 1,400 receiving yards, 18 touchdowns, and is now widely considered the best receiver in the game, Davante is looking to be paid accordingly. His current contract, which averages out to $14.5 million per year, makes him the 18th highest-paid receiver in football–an incredible value for Green Bay. However, Adams is now likely looking to be the league’s highest-paid receiver.

There are likely two roadblocks that derailed negotiations originally. As I noted in a recent article, one is that DeAndre Hopkins’ deal that pays him $27.25 million per year is on average over $5 million more than Julio Jones, who has the second-highest average annual value at the receiver position.

Had Arizona offered Hopkins a deal closer to the range that Jones is in, that certainly would have made things easier for the Green Bay Packers. It also doesn’t help that a similar situation unfolded in 2020 at the tackle position with Laremy Tunsil, yet Green Bay still made David Bakhtiari the highest-paid tackle in the NFL–don’t think that Adams and his agent didn’t notice.

The other big factor in all of this was the uncertainty around Rodgers’ future and his contract. As it’s been reported, Green Bay and Rodgers are working out a deal that will free up cap space in 2021, moving an unknown amount of cap charges to 2022, and they’ve also voided the 2023 season on his deal.

Prior to the Packers working things out with Rodgers, all of those variables were unknown, making it extremely difficult to negotiate with Adams–or anyone for that matter. When working with potential deals as big as what Adams’ could be, the structure of it is crucial, and not knowing what Rodgers’ cap charges or dead cap hits were going to be in future years made these negotiations all the more challenging.

Perhaps this is why the Green Bay Packers are now able to make a real run at extending Adams, as Schefter reported.

Now, having said all of that, I doubt that anything will be worked out in the near future. As GM Brian Gutekunst has told us in the past, deals of this magnitude take time, as there are a lot of moving parts. The good news is that Green Bay has plenty of time on their side–free agency doesn’t begin until mid-March, after all.

One other note on Adams that I do think is important is that Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, who reported that extension talks were in a “bad place,” would recently say that Adams’ negotiations have nothing to do with Rodgers and that he is willing to talk regardless of what the reigning MVP’s status is beyond this season–which of course, is good news.

However, Rapoport didn’t leave me feeling that the Packers are operating with the same sense of urgency that Schefter alluded to. That of course, doesn’t mean that they won’t try to extend Adams — I imagine that they will try again — but Rapoport left things much more open-ended.

As we’ve done all offseason, we will continue playing the waiting game, but know that there is still plenty of time to get this done, and according to Schefter, it sounds like the Green Bay Packers are gearing up for another run at Adams.