Milestones Are Mileposts on Adams’ Path to Legendary Status
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Davante Adams is third in the NFL with 90 receptions and 1,204 yards tied for 10th with seven touchdowns this year.
Those are really good numbers. Just not for Adams.
“He’s mad right now that other guys’ stat lines are better than him,” receivers coach Jason Vrable said after Thursday’s practice.
That’s not to suggest Adams is selfish and wants personal accolades over team success. It’s that his goals – individual and team – are so lofty. Greatness is Adams’ expectation; nothing else will suffice.
“Everything to him is to press himself and be better than everybody who’s ever played the game,” Vrable continued.
Adams isn’t just one of the great receivers in the NFL today. He’s one of the best of the era and is on a path to be one of the best of all-time.
As a rookie in 2014, Adams was the third wheel in a receiver corps dominated by veteran stars Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb. In 2015, he was dogged by an ankle injury that took the juice out of his game.
From 2016 through his total domination of the Chicago Bears on Sunday night, he has been an unstoppable force. Over the last six seasons, Adams is second in the NFL with 548 receptions. DeAndre Hopkins has 550 but that two-catch advantage has come on 51 more targets. Adams is fifth with 6,843 yards, 221 yards behind Julio Jones’ league-leading mark. And he’s first with 65 touchdowns, eight more than Mike Evans.
Adams is chasing Packers history. He enters Sunday’s game at the Baltimore Ravens, the team that employs his mentor, Keith Williams, as passing-game coordinator with 69 career touchdown catches. That’s tied with Jordy Nelson for No. 2 on the all-time list (but still 30 behind the legendary Don Hutson). Nelson caught 65 of those from Aaron Rodgers, making them the most prolific quarterback-receiver duo in franchise history. Adams has caught 64 of his touchdowns from Rodgers. With 7,772 receiving yards, he’s 76 yards behind Nelson for fifth in Packers history, 219 yards behind Hutson for fourth and 362 yards behind Sterling Sharpe for third.
If he gets those 362 yards this season, he would eclipse Nelson’s single-season record of 1,519 yards in 2014. Adams needs 25 catches to match his team-record 115 receptions from last season. He has that many catches the last three games.
Those milestones are merely mileposts on Adams’ ultimate destinations of Pro Football Hall of Famer and Super Bowl champion.
“The gold jacket is the most important as far as individual achievements. The rest I’m just doing work on the way to getting that hardware that I’m most interested in,” Adams said on Wednesday. “It’s an awesome achievement anytime you get the most [of any statistic]. It’s great company, so it’s obviously humbling to be mentioned with some of these guys, but I’m always thinking about the big picture.”
And that big picture isn’t about putting his name in the team record book. It’s about building his legend with accomplishments too good to ignore when it’s time to consider his place in NFL history.
“I don’t really like leaving stuff up to other people, so I’d rather go out and do it every single week,” he said. “I’ve had times this year or even last year where coaches will be like ‘Hey, it’s a long season’ after maybe coming out of a decent game – maybe 60 or 70 yards – but my standard is I want to produce as much as possible. Unless we put up a game and everybody else is eating and they’re going out and scoring touchdowns, then that’s fine. But if we come out of a game with a lackluster performance on offense and I wasn’t too involved, then I’m going to feel some type of way about that, win or loss, because I put a lot of what happens as an offense on me. So if I’m not given the opportunities or I don’t play super-well, then it messes with me. I just think about maximizing every time you’re out there and put that jacket on when my career’s done, hopefully.”
Adams excels at everything. According to Pro Football Focus, he ranks sixth in the league with 10 receptions on passes thrown 20-plus yards downfield, fourth with 470 yards after the catch and sixth with a 2.2 percent drop rate. He’s forced 11 missed tackles; more than the last two years combined.
“I try to make my game to where I don’t have any weaknesses,” Adams said.
It's no coincidence that Adams’ best three-game run of the season corresponds with the offense’s best three-game run of the season. In scoring 31 points vs. Minnesota, 36 vs. the Rams and 45 vs. the Bears, Adams became the first player in franchise history with three consecutive games of seven-plus catches and 100-plus yards. Adams grabbed 25-of-30 passes for 340 yards and four scores during that span. After scoring two touchdowns in his first nine games, he has four in the last three.
“He’s a grinder and he’s a worker and he flips a switch,” Vrable said. “When he crosses that white line, he’s an animal. Not everybody is made that way.”
