All throughout the 2021 NFL season, Green Bay Packers’ fans had known that it might be the last Davante Adams plays for the team. Prior to the start of the season, the Packers and Adams could not come to an agreement on a contract extension and broke off negotiations. Adams and Aaron Rodgers even posted identical photos on Instagram from the famed Last Dance documentary about the Chicago Bulls. Now that the Green Bay Packers’ season is over, Adams’ contract demands have been made public.
How Much Does Davante Adams Want?
According to NBC Sports Edge, the back-to-back All Pro wide receiver has a salary demand no wide receiver has ever asked for before.
Report: Davante Adams asking for $30M annually https://t.co/wHNXGbymQF
— Rotoworld Football (@rotoworld_fb) January 29, 2022
$30 million annually would make Davante Adams the highest paid wide receiver in the history of the NFL. Keep in mind, this is his demand even though he knows Aaron Rodgers is under contract for next year and carries a cap hit of $46 million. It does not appear likely that Adams wants or plans to return to Green Bay given his salary demands.
What Options Do the Packers Have?
Despite this massive salary demand, there is a way that the Green Bay Packers can keep Davante Adams on their roster next season. This option is the franchise tag, which Green Bay has not used since they tagged Ryan Pickett in 2010. If the Packers were to use the tag on Adams, he would get a little more than $22 million for the 2022 season, fully guaranteed.
Another option, albeit a farfetched one, is to give Adams a contract with that has a few massively backloaded seasons. What this means is that Adams would make less money in the first couple of years of the contract before making ridiculous money in the final years. NFL contracts are almost never fully guaranteed, so Adams is not likely to agree to such a deal.
The Packers Salary Cap Situation
As it stands right now, the Green Bay Packers are $50 million over the salary cap. They need to shed this money before the beginning of the new league year. Even if they get it down to exactly zero dollars over, they will have no money to sign free agents or their draft picks. In short, there is no way that Green Bay will be able to meet Adams’ demands.
Tagging and Trading Is Not an Option
Many fans believe the Packers should just franchise tag Davante Adams and then ship him off via trade for a load of draft picks. However, this also is not a feasible option:
In order for the Packers to tag & trade Davante Adams the team would first need to be under the salary cap WITH the $20.12M tag on their books at 3PM CST March 16th
The Packers are currently $52.3M over the cap without this tag or any of their other 23 FAs re-signed
Longshot pic.twitter.com/vPySCGEFYL
— Ken – Packers Cap (@KenIngalls) January 29, 2022
In other words, the Green Bay Packers already face an uphill battle to shed over $50 million before March. If they were to tag Davante Adams, they would have to shed close to $75 million. Even an Aaron Rodgers contract extension, with deferred money and a lower cap hit, will not be enough to solve this dilemma. Any new deal that Rodgers signs will have a cap hit of at least $19.17 million. This is the least amount of a cap hit the Packers will have on his contract even if Rodgers decides to retire.
It really was the Last Dance.
Update
Per Ian Rapoport, the Packers are expected to franchise tag Davante Adams.
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