The Green Bay Packers' Davante Adams has developed into one of the top receivers in the NFL today. The Patriots will face Adams when the Packers come to town to play them in Foxboro on Sunday night.
FOXBORO – The numbers put him in elite company.
Since the start of the 2016 season, Green Bay Packers wide receiver Davante Adams has hauled in 28 touchdowns passes, second in the NFL over that time only to Antonio Brown’s 29 with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was the only player in the league to register 70-plus receptions and 10-plus receiving touchdowns in each of the past two years.
Over the course of his career, now nearly 4-1/2 years in length, Adams has made 10 receptions or more in a game five times. He’s grabbed seven or more passes in five of the Packers’ seven games this season, five in each of the other two.
Over the last three games alone, 100-yard receiving games all (he now has nine in his career), Adams has caught 24 passes in 35 targets for 405 yards and three touchdowns.
With 52 catches, Adams is currently 10th in the league, his 690 receiving yards are seventh and his six touchdown receptions are tied for fourth heading into Sunday night’s game with the Patriots at Gillette Stadium – all of that despite the fact that the Packers have had their bye this season and thus he has played one less game than many of the players ahead of him.
“Davante Adams,” Patriots safety Devin McCourty said Thursday, “is a great receiver. We got to see it first hand his rookie year when we went down to Green Bay and had to play against him, he was really tough then. So you just add the years since 2014 and his continued progress improving, he’s a handful.”
In the wake of Jordy Nelson’s decline and ultimately his offseason release, Adams has clearly become the Packers’ go-to guy.
“They have a lot of weapons,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said. “He’s a big one. A vertical receiver, does a great job down the field, catch-and-run player, strong runner, hard to tackle.
“It’s hard to play off him. It’s hard to play up on him. He does a very good job of beating man coverage with his quickness and route technique. He’s got a great quarterback (Aaron Rodgers) throwing to him. They do a good job. Coach (Mike) McCarthy does a good job of game planning, running routes that beat coverages. They move him around so he’s not always in one spot. So he’s not the easiest guy to get because you don’t always know where he’s going to be. He’s a major impact player for them.”
As McCourty alluded to, the 6-foot-1, 215-pound Adams was a major impact player the only time he’s suited up against the Patriots, catching six passes in 11 targets for 121 yards in the Packers’ 26-21 victory at Lambeau Field on Nov. 30, 2014, his rookie year as a second-round draft pick fresh out of Fresno State.
That’s a day Patriots linebackers coach-de facto defensive coordinator Brian Flores remembers, albeit it one he’d rather forget.
“(He presents) many problems,” said Flores. “This guy’s fast, he’s explosive, (has) great hands. Short, intermediate, deep (routes), he’s definitely one of the best players at his position in this league.
“I go back to ’14 when we played him in Green Bay, it was like his coming-out party and he’s really progressed and become one of the top players in this league since then. So that’s definitely a challenge and he is somebody that we’re going to have to keep a strong eye on.”
From that rookie season, when he caught 38 passes for 446 yards and three touchdowns in 16 games, Adams has developed into a player who made 74 receptions for 885 yards and 10 TDs in earning Pro Bowl honors for the first time last year, one who is on pace to inflate those numbers to 119 catches for 1,577 yards for 14 touchdowns this year.
“He’s big for us,” coach McCarthy said. “I think he can do it all from the wide receiver position and we’re expecting a lot of attention (from) the Patriots’ secondary on that. The other thing I like about him is he’s really taken the reins here from a leadership standpoint. So Davante’s another special player for us.”