Former Green Bay Packers stars Davante Adams and Aaron Rodgers have been making a great deal of headlines lately. This is because Adams recently revealed that Rodgers, with whom he played for eight years in Green Bay, has said the four-time NFL MVP has been “in his ear” regarding a possible reunion. Rodgers, too, told reporters that he “can’t wait to play with [Davante] again.”
The pair shared a great deal of regular season success together in eight years, and the possibility of them reuniting, regardless of where that might be, is exciting.
That being said, in a recent interview with former NFL wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson, Adams revealed that it did not have to end in the first place. The Packers’ front office blew it.
Davante Adams Would Have Stayed with the Green Bay Packers Despite the Aaron Rodgers Uncertainty
Three-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson now hosts a podcast called All Gas No Brakes. He had Adams on the show to talk about his experience filming the Receiver documentary on Netflix and other topics.
Johnson told Adams that he believed the Raiders wide receiver was insane for ever leaving a future Hall of Famer in Rodgers. Adams, though, revealed that the situation was not as cut-and-dry as it appeared:
.@tae15adams gives us a sneak peek inside his departure from Green Bay 👀 pic.twitter.com/vgdZ2Pikk0
— All Facts No Brakes (@AllFactsPod) July 11, 2024
“It’s a whole lot that go into it, man,” Adams began. “I don’t ever make a decision out of just passion or whatever. It’s always calculated. Everything that I do is calculated.
“And you know, just the surface level, we seen how much Aaron was going back and forth, year after year. We didn’t know how long he was going to be in Green Bay.
“And honestly, since we talking about it, going into the last year I played in Green Bay, I told [the front office], ‘Hey, you see what I’m doing. It’s time for a new deal. Are we going to let me go into this last year with no security?’
“[I was] basically playing for $12 million, which was significantly less than what a franchise tag would even be. So I’m playing for worse than what the tag is, no security, [I had to] take out a Lloyds of London insurance policy to make sure that I’m compensated, which still wouldn’t have taken care of me the way I would have needed it to.
“Long story short, I say to them, ‘You see it’s All-Pro after All-Pro. What do you need to see in order for you to feel like you can pay me right now?’
“Look, I said, ‘Pay me right now and we don’t even need to worry about, I’m not even going to consider that Aaron may be out of here. Let’s do it now. It’s up to J Love and Aaron is out of here, well we’re going to rock with that.’
“So I told them that and they said, ‘We’ll give you $17 million a year.’ So I said, ‘Click. There’s nothing to talk about. I don’t know if you’ve seen what the market is, but there is nothing to talk about.'”
The Green Bay Packers Front Office Low-Balled Davante Adams
As seen above, the Packers’ initial offer to Adams was only $17 million per season. To put that in perspective, Amon-Ra St. Brown just got $30 million per season from the Detroit Lions before accomplishing anything close to what Adams has accomplished in his career.
The Packers then placed the franchise tag on Adams in hopes of negotiating with him, but their initial offer had insulted him to the point that he no longer wanted to do business with them.
He ended up getting over $28 million a year on the contract he signed with the Las Vegas Raiders following the trade.
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