Adams on Rams: 'True optimism versus just hoping'

Needless to say, Davante Adams is happy to be a member of the Los Angeles Rams.

The three-time All-Pro wide receiver believes that there are real reasons to believe they can win, rather than just the aspirations he'd seen in recent years with the Las Vegas Raiders and New York Jets.

“This is like true optimism versus just hoping," the 32-year-old Adams told The Athletic's Michael Silver. "Obviously, knowing what I know about the management there, the players, the team success they’ve had in recent years and just over time … those are usually the type of teams that have stressed success. The most important thing was [joining] a good, winning team.”

Since leaving the Green Bay Packers, with whom he spent the first eight seasons of his career, after the 2021 season in a trade with the Raiders, Adams has not seen a playoff game. The Redwood, CA native split last season between the Raiders and the Jets were he was reunited with quarterback Aaron Rodgers. It was the second time Adams wanted to play with a former QB with his trade to the Raiders motivated by a desire to join up with Fresno State teammate Derek Carr.

 Adams says he was shocked by the team's decision to bench Carr towards the end of the 2022 season.

“If I was Scooby-Doo,” Adams told Silver, “I would’ve went, ‘Urrrrrrrrrrr?’ Like, you literally brought me here, you knew the reason why … me going there for Derek; everybody in the world knew that. And then to be in a situation where now you just pull him from me after we had a very productive year? That was the first kind of confused moment that I had. And then things continued that next year … obviously what they decided to do and some of the moves they decided to make on offence. And things continued the next year again. [Initially], I was trying to feel good about it, more than actually what I was presented with — just the facts of who’s the head coach, who’s my receiver coach, who is the offensive coordinator, who’s calling plays, what the defence looks like, all that stuff."

After requesting a trade from the Raiders, he found more dysfunction with the Jets.

“The leader in me likes to think that if I was there earlier, I could have had a bigger impact and maybe changed some things — just the morale of the team, getting guys used to winning and that different type of culture, just kind of shifting that a little bit earlier," Adams said of his arrival after Week 6 when the team was already 2-4. "But getting there Oct. 15th is not an ideal time to make too many changes.”

Adams told Silver that he wanted to leave the Jets when he discovered that Rodgers wasn't going to return, something the QB told him during a golf outing. Adams says he was taken aback with new general manager Darren Mougey's bluntness in telling Rodgers they didn't want him back.

“I thought [Rodgers] was being a little dramatic at first," Adams said. "I’m like, ‘Bro, don’t paraphrase it. How did he [actually] say this?’ [But] that’s how he said it. And I was shocked because I didn’t think anybody had the balls to, for lack of better words, to hit him with it like that. Just flat out — ‘Yeah, I think we’re just gonna do something different. We’re gonna move in a different direction.’ It was shocking, but right from that moment, I knew there was no chance that I’d be back there."

Before signing with the Rams on a two-year, $44 million deal, Adams concedes that he also thought about an NFC West rival due to its proximity to his East Palo Alto, CA home.

“I was entertaining the Niners,” Adams said, “but they were like, ‘We’re paying wholesale. We ain’t paying retail.’ I didn’t talk to them, but that’s what my agent told me — like five times, that quote. And I was like, ‘OK, well, I’m not a wholesale-type dude.’”

Adams now heads into his 12th NFL season. For his career, he's hauled in 957 receptions for 11,844 yards and 103 touchdowns.