New York Jets general manager Joe Douglas is not familiar with success. This is an experience roughly on par with the Jets’ post-2010 existence.
It’s been nearly 14 years since New York’s last postseason invite. It’s been more than eight years since the Jets had a winning record. Douglas has been the roster-building architect behind six of those seasons. He’s watched two different coaches he was supposed to help guide to glory wind up fired.
He drafted Zach Wilson. He made Le’Veon Bell a “home run pickup,” per ESPN’s phrasing. He shipped off multiple high value draft picks for a 39-year-old quarterback coming off his least efficient season as a pro, then watched year one of his great experiment crumble thanks to a torn Achilles four plays into the season.
Douglas has cast his lot with Aaron Rodgers, a four-time MVP whose stature on the field rivals his presence off it. Since 2023, this has led to a 2-4 record in games the veteran has finished. But with the AFC East unsettled and an easy schedule ahead, New York’s season is far from over.
So, in dire need of a winning season to save his job, Douglas made a common sense move. He took a quarterback who has built an identity around reuniting with former teammates — see Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb — and reunited him with one of the best he’s ever had. Enter Davante Adams.
Adams was a common sense pickup, a move that can improve the league’s 22nd-ranked offense while keeping a frustrated star happy. By giving up a third round pick that could, but probably won’t, become a second-rounder, New York added a three-time All-Pro wide receiver who can fill the role Mike Williams has struggled to live up to this fall.
Will Adams fix things in a season where Rodgers has displayed bursts of his old MVP form but failed to sustain it? He should at least make them better.
The former Green Bay Packer and Las Vegas Raider turns 32 years old in December. His impact has waned since his stellar 2022. His yards per route run have slipped from 2.36 — ninth-best in the NFL — to 1.96 in 2023 to 1.63 this fall. Those numbers have been muted by uneven quarterback play and the hamstring injury that limited him to three games to start the season, but it’s still not a trend you want to see from a skill player on the wrong side of 30.
The most likely outcome is Adams emerges for something like five catches and 60 yards per game while making some clutch third down grabs. The optimistic version sees him explode for a few throwback performances while freeing up Garrett Wilson to thrive as Rodgers shakes off any notion of age-based regression and fires the clock back to 2021. The pessimistic one is, well, we’ve seen what Douglas’s other high profile wideout addition this season has done. Mike Williams has 10 catches in six games.
History suggests it will be the latter. Douglas has overseen a team that’s gone 29-60 under his stewardship. While some of his additions have been difference makers — C.J. Mosley! Sauce Gardner! Quincy Williams! — his track record with once-proven veterans is lacking.
Bell was a disaster. Breshad Perriman had 30 receptions as a Jet. Carl Lawson was the team’s highest paid player in 2021 and he rewarded that faith with seven total sacks.
Corey Davis got $27 million guaranteed and never rose above WR3 status. C.J. Uzomah got a bigger guarantee than anyone in New York’s 2022 free agent class and had 29 catches in green and white.
Dalvin Cook was washed in 2023. 2024’s two highest-salaried additions, Williams and Javon Kinlaw, were each detriments in the Jets’ Week 6 loss to the Buffalo Bills.
This means Adams may be Douglas’s last swing in an attempt to keep a job he has yet to prove he can do effectively. But most of his punches fail to land, especially when it comes to skill players (Allen Lazard’s four-year, $44 million contract is starting to look better, but that may be a result of Rodgers’ lobbying more than an actual Douglas decision).
For the Jets’ general manager to keep his job, he needs more than low-stakes optimism. He needs Rodgers and Adams to link up like it’s 2021 all over again. That’s a big risk for two players each aging out of their primes. But Douglas loves laying a bet on veterans on the downslope of their careers, even if they haven’t panned out for him.
