National Football League

Here's why fans think Davante Adams is alluding to a potential Ravens trade

Published Oct. 4, 2024 6:49 p.m. ET

The Davante Adams saga has a new chapter. Enter: Edgar Allan Poe.

Four days after reportedly requesting a trade from the Las Vegas Raiders, the star wide receiver posted a picture of the famed poet on social media, which immediately sparked a ton of conversation online.

Was the Poe post meant to allude to a potential trade partner? Fans were quick to point out that Adams could be making a subtle nod to having his sights set on Baltimore, as one of Poe's most famous works is titled "The Raven."

However, NFL Insider Albert Breer believes this is all part of Adams' plan to secure a trade to the New York Jets, which would reunite him with veteran quarterback Aaron Rodgers — his teammate from 2014-21 with the Green Bay Packers.

"I think the Raiders need to drum up a market because other teams involved in this are convinced that he's trying to engineer a move to the Jets," Breer said on Friday's edition of "The Herd." "For this to happen, he may need other teams involved. The Bills have inquired … the Steelers are involved … [and] you've got the Saints, who are on the periphery of the whole thing. They were one of the teams that Davante Adams told the Raiders he would be happy [being traded to] given that they, like the Jets, have a quarterback that he knows very well in Derek Carr.

"If the Steelers and the Bills are skeptical that they're gonna be taken seriously in this whole thing — they're not gonna wanna be used as pawns. So how do you figure out what the real value of the player is, if you're the Raiders, if you only have one bidder? … I don't think [the return] is gonna be huge here. … I think the value here is probably a third- or a fourth-round pick. … If you're the Raiders … and teams are saying, ‘We’re monitoring this, but we don't want to give you a hard offer yet because we think he's going to the Jets,' … [you] might want to find somebody to bid that up a little bit."

"Adams does have some control here in that no one is going to want to bring him in without him signing off on the idea," Breer added. "It's just a complicated situation, but everybody that I've talked to about this thing has told me the belief is that Adams is trying to engineer a trade to the Jets and that he and Rodgers have been in contact.

"I think that eventually happens — it's just a little complicated getting there."

Adams, 31, is in his third year of a five-year, $140 million deal he signed with the Raiders in 2022. Las Vegas gave up both a first- and second-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft to acquire him from Green Bay. His trade request came hours after another report surfaced that the Raiders had started exploring the possibility of trading him and were reaching out to teams to see how interested they were.

Adams missed the Raiders' Week 4 win over Cleveland due to a hamstring injury, which will sideline him again in Week 5. Adams has totaled 18 receptions for 209 yards and one score in the three games that he has appeared in this season.

A six-time Pro Bowler and three-time All-Pro, Adams boasts 10,990 receiving yards on 890 catches (12.3 yards per reception) and 96 touchdowns in 153 career games played — eight seasons with the Packers and three with the Raiders. He has topped the 1,000-yard mark in five of his past six seasons and led the league in receiving touchdowns twice (18 in 2020 and 14 in 2022).

It remains to be seen where Adams lands — if anywhere — and if his latest social media post was a sign or simply to stir the pot. "First Things First" cohost Nick Wright thinks it's the latter, saying that he believes Adams is just "screwing with the media," calling his post of Poe nothing more than "internet tomfoolery."

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