Jets answer one question with Davante Adams, but the deal doesn't solve everything
Davante Adams and Aaron Rodgers are reunited following a trade Tuesday. Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images; Errol Anderson
Aaron Rodgers and the Jets completed a Hail Mary pass on Monday night against the Bills. They attempted another one off the field on Tuesday morning. We’ll see if this one can help them win more than the first did.
The trade for Davante Adams reeks of desperation. It is a last-ditch effort to make viable a scheme that was hatched in the 2023 offseason, to bring in a Hall of Fame quarterback with as much of his supporting cast as possible and see if they could alter the trajectory of a franchise that has spent the past half-century tripping over itself with just about every decision it has made. With that brainchild of Woody Johnson’s now teetering on the edge of joining the large pile of others, some that even saw various levels of moderate success but ultimately didn’t pay off with a trophy, bringing Adams in feels like stunt casting. It is a fingers-crossed heave while trailing with time running out.
Here's the thing about those passes, though: Sometimes they work. When they do, it is generally spectacular and memorable. And as we have learned in the past 48 hours, no one in the history of the NFL has shown a better knack for scoring on them than Rodgers.
Is Adams the final piece that will turn Rodgers into the Rodgers the Jets thought they were getting? Is he really the only piece that has mattered all along to Rodgers? He’s brought tagalongs like Randall Cobb, Allen Lazard and Nathaniel Hackett here with him but perhaps they were merely buddy extras to keep the quarterback amused while he was biding his time waiting for his true football soulmate to wiggle free, reach the trading block, catch a red-eye flight from Vegas to Jersey, and salvage the legacies and reputations that Rodgers, Johnson, general manager Joe Douglas, and now interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich now all have riding on these next 11 games.
For a team that lost a third straight contest and fallen two games off the lead in the division just hours earlier, the Jets were plenty giddy about themselves in their public appearances throughout the day on Tuesday. First Johnson held court at the League Meetings in Atlanta, one week after having fired Robert Saleh, spouting pearls of his fortune cookie wisdom such as “status quo is a killer” and “thinking is overrated.”
Johnson was asked if the season is salvageable.
“Salvageable? We're going to kick . . . you can fill the word in," he said.
Shortly afterward Rodgers made his weekly appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” and Adams stopped by over his shoulder to say hello and make the reunion real in a sensory way.
“We’re back, man, we’re back,” Adams said.
Added Rodgers: “We definitely got better today . . . There is still a lot of season left. Now it’s go time.”
Then, shortly after Adams passed his physical and the trade was officially announced, Ulbrich gave his thoughts on the acquisition.
“Super excited,” he said, calling Adams “an elite player and an elite human being” and even comparing him to Jerry Rice in the role he will play in mentoring Garrett Wilson. “It’s an exciting time to be a Jet,” Ulbrich said.
The Jets do, of course, seem to have a lot of these “exciting times.” Just not always in those three-hour windows when they play their games. They have led the league in drama and splash and sizzle and intrigue and captivating allure for the last few years, it feels like, but have nothing but this current 2-4 record to show for it.
Adams may bring a lot to the Jets, will probably help in the red zone, and his arrival certainly has made Rodgers happier. But can he protect Rodgers on the offensive line? Can he tackle opposing running backs or sack quarterbacks? Can he kick a field goal? Those are all areas where the Jets need more improvement right now. No one saw them play on Monday night against the Bills and thought “this team is a receiver away from being a Super Bowl contender.”
Yet that’s the thing about those desperation passes. They aren’t based in logic (or maybe, as Johnson would call it, in “thinking”). They are forged from having no other options, nothing else to lose, but everything to gain.
They don’t always connect. In fact they almost always fail. But for those few breathless seconds when the ball is in the air and the receivers and defensive backs are elbowing for position in the end zone, it can feel as if anything is possible.
And that’s where the Jets are today.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
