The Davante Adams experiment in Las Vegas didn’t work out the way everyone hoped, but the Raiders were at least able to flip Adams’ deal into the draft pick that brought Geno Smith to the team.
In October, it will be a year since Adams was traded to the Jets, and Maxx Crosby talked last week about where things started going off track between Adams and the Raiders a few years ago.
On the Glory Daze podcast with Johnny Manziel, Crosby said the turning point with Adams was the even bigger turning point with Derek Carr.
“It just didn’t turn out the way we expected it,” Crosby said of Adams’ time with the Raiders. “You know what I mean? [Davante] comes in… Josh McDaniels comes in, comes in one of the best offensive minds in the league.
“Him and Derek were together at Fresno. It just seems like it’s like almost too good to be true and then the Derek situation didn’t work out. He gets benched at the end of the year. He didn’t even finish the whole season with Davante and then he’s out of there,” Crosby continued.
“So it’s like that’s when I feel like it started with the Devontae situation was like, OK, now Derek’s gone. Now, now what the f—— is the plan? That’s his guy. You know what I mean? So I feel like after that, it kind of things got a little rocky.”
Davante Adams hasn’t been shy about sharing his feelings on his former team, and he fired another shot at the Raiders last week.
Comparing the culture in Los Angeles to what he experienced in three seasons with the Raiders, Adams didn’t mince words last week.
“Everybody’s in a good mood [with the Rams]. It’s not like a dark cloud over the building,” Adams told ESPN NFL Nation reporter Sarah Barshop. “And I’ve experienced that quite a bit over the last few years. So, it’s a glaring difference when you come into a building like this.”
In December, while the situation in New York was falling apart for Adams and Aaron Rodgers with the Jets, Adams compared playing with the Raiders like showing up to a gun fight with a knife.
“It’s really frustrating, but it was the right thing to do,” Adams added about his decision to leave the Raiders. “It made sense. Nobody can look at this move and say it made more sense for me to stay in Vegas in the situation I was in there. If they do, then they just hatin’ and just talking like how they do.”
“If you look at the numbers, it’s like if you going to war and somebody saying you got a knife and everybody else got rifles, and then somebody finds a rifle and they hand you a rifle… so you start going and you go to shoot the rifle, and it jams up. That’s like saying, ‘Ah… I should have just kept the knife.’ No, you did the right thing by grabbing the rifle, it just didn’t work the way you intended it to. Sometimes that happens and you got to live with that.”
Maybe Adams was lumping the New York experience in with the Raiders, but the “last few years” was undoubtedly a shot at the Raiders.
Last year, Adams justified his move to the Jets as a good decision, despite the fact that the Jets ended the season no better than the Raiders.
“It’s really frustrating, but it was the right thing to do,” Adams said of the move to New York on the Up and Adams Show. “It made sense. Nobody can look at this move and say it made more sense for me to stay in Vegas in the situation I was in there. If they do, then they just hatin’ and just talking like how they do.”
“If you look at the numbers, it’s like if you going to war and somebody saying you got a knife and everybody else got rifles, and then somebody finds a rifle and they hand you a rifle… so you start going and you go to shoot the rifle, and it jams up. That’s like saying, ‘Ah… I should have just kept the knife.’ No, you did the right thing by grabbing the rifle, it just didn’t work the way you intended it to. Sometimes that happens and you got to live with that.”
Manziel and Crosby talked about Adams’ upcoming season with the Rams, and both felt like the 32-year-old wideout is going to have a big season with Sean McVay as his head coach and Matthew Stafford at quarterback.
x: @raidersbeat
Adams is a quitter with no heart. Not a team player, when things get tough, he quits, not once but twice. He can spin it any which way, but we all know better, I’ve been a Raider fan since 72 way before this clown was born. Seen them come and go,but never seen anyone go like this fool.
Amen. Adams wants everything perfect like a fairy tale. When things get tough he starts pointing fingers and then bales out for greener pastures. That’s not working for something that means anything. He wants championships that he didn’t earn.
You forget Randy Moss’s departure from the Raiders was very similar to Davante Adam’s departure the only difference is Moss went to play with the GOAT Tom Brady not a washed up Aaron Rodgers. Most so called elite WR’s all get BIG HEADS and become Divas. That’s why this time our Raiders are doing it right, building through the draft and signing young and hungry players and seasoned vets with something to prove! Thos season we will be kicking butt and taking names! RN4L
The DA trade was terrible! However once McDaniels did it then he should’ve tried working with the veterans instead of the BS my way or the highway attitude. Once the braintrust decided to bench and ultimately release Carr then the plan should’ve been to trade DA since there was no plan at QB. Even McDaniels handpicked guy Stidham said cya. It was way too much to trade for an older receiver who clearly didn’t want to be in GB anymore and clearly GB didn’t want him either. Between those facts and a contract was going to be needed the max comp should’ve been a 3rd. I could get into the other terrible decisions that McDaniels made that made DA not want to be in Vegas but bottom line is the entire situation with DA should always be the team gave up on him and the other players long before DA wanted out.
All too true, The McDoofus era was an abject disaster for the franchise, Davis made a huge mistake. So far, he seems to have finally found the the right formula, we’ll soon find out how this all fits together on the field.
Stop covering, reporting, quoting Adams. Enough. The dude didn’t want to be here. End of story.
Well, I’ve been a Raider since 1968 and truly know my team. While Davante Addams and many others have their take on this Raiders organization, the truth is that the “problems” with this franchise go back years and are rooted in ownership. Initially, when Mark Davis inherited the franchise he said, “…the only thing that I know about football is what I don’t know about football.” Let the problems begin.
Subsequently, he processed to hire a General Manager whose only “credential” were people saying that “he has an eye for talent.” While that was suspect all by itself, that GM, Reggie McKenzie, hired a marginal coach in Jack Del Rio, passed on drafting Russell Wilson and drafted a cornerback with a heart condition and those are the highlights.
Later, Mark Davis would hire a TV analyst, Mike Mayock, as the next General Manager and the coach that his father fired. The same coach, that as a TV commentator had an answer for everything. However, once he was rehired by Mark Davis, traded away Kahlil Mack, before the season began and at mid-season famously said, “…I need a pass rusher.”
My points? The incompetence runs deep with this organization and it starts at the top. THAT is indicative of the “dark cloud” that Davante Addams was referring to.