4 Big Things from the Green Bay Packers Trading Davante Adams

Apparently, the Green Bay Packers salary cap wasn’t the issue

Since last summer, we knew that the Green Bay Packers and Davante Adams have been far apart on contract negotiations. In short, Adams wanted to eclipse DeAndre Hopkins’ $27.2 million per year deal, while I imagine the Packers were looking more in the $23-$24 million range, ahead of Julio Jones’ $22 million per year deal that he signed when with Atlanta.

So when the news broke that the trade was taking place, my initial thought was that negotiations had broken down, and the Packers either weren’t able to pay Adams what he was asking for because of the salary cap, or perhaps they were just unwilling–again, with the salary cap in mind.

But according to ESPN’s Rob Demovsky, the Packers did offer Adams the exact same contract that Las Vegas did; however, he would turn it down. So clearly, Green Bay had the ability to offer him a deal of his liking, but my guess is that it was a little too late in Adams’ eyes.

This is all just speculation on my part, but the two parties had been in negotiations for a long time, and it took until this stage of the game for Green Bay to put together an offer that Adams wanted, which I imagine didn’t sit well with him. Adams also has the opportunity to play with Derek Carr, his college quarterback, and something that we know is important to him.

Additionally, we don’t know how much guaranteed money the Packers had offered compared to Las Vegas, which was also a noted point of contention in negotiations as well.

It’s also worth noting in all of this is that Aaron Rodgers was aware of the situation and still made the decision to return to the Packers, likely knowing that he would be without Adams. I guess those Last Dance photos from last summer were in reference to Adams and not Rodgers.