This week the Raiders made a decision they haven’t made in a decade — they benched their starting quarterback. That move is obviously going to be greeted in different ways by the players on the team. And in this case, no player on the team is more affected by it than their All Pro receiver, Davante Adams.
Adams joined the Raiders last offseason in part to reunite with Derek Carr. The two of them had great success at Fresno State, with both getting drafted into the NFL in the second round by the Raiders and Packers respectively.
After eight years with the team that drafted them, Adams was ready to move on and the Raiders were the perfect destination for him. It was his childhood team, he’d be close to his family in California, and he’d get a chance to play with Carr again.
Despite this reunion, Carr has had his worst season since his rookie year and was benched and sent home for the final two weeks of the season.
Adams was asked about his feelings on the benching and dismissal of his long time friend. And naturally, he was pretty upset.
“I don’t think anybody was excited about it in here,” Adams said Wednesday. “Him being one of my really good friends and the reason why I came here in the first place. I wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t here. I think everybody knows how I feel about him. With that said I think this is the process of how things go and I’m not going to sit here and go on and on. Obviously I support my guy. We got to finish the season out the best way we can possible with all things considered at this point.”
Adams also took to social media to express his support for Derek.
Davante Adams on IG. pic.twitter.com/AeZWYyJqlK
— Anthony Galaviz (@agalaviz_TheBee) December 29, 2022
Adams being upset is to be expected. All the head coach can do is understand Adams’s feelings on this and give him as well as anyone else on the team who may be upset about this decision to space they need.
“Relationships are relationships. The human side of it is real. And so you’re allowed to feel however you feel about people,” McDaniels said of the team’s reaction to Carr’s benching. “I think we all have a job to do and I think they’ve done a tremendous job this week of preparing each day. Practice has been good, their energy has been tremendous and their attitude has been great. And that’s what I would’ve expected them to do and that’s what they’ve done.”
McDaniels talks about how the team is practicing this week and how “mature” the players have been. But the real concern with regard to Adams is not how he will perform this week or next week. It’s about whether he will ultimately be able to get past this and stay with the team after this season.
Adams was asked about that this week and was entirely non-committal.
“We got two games left. We got the Niners this week and then we got another game to go to finish and that’s all I’m really focused on right now,” said Adams. He then added “This is what I have to do for the remainder of the season and then moving forward we’ll see how everything goes from there.”
This team can’t make decisions about Carr or anyone else based on how Adams or anyone else may or may not react to it. And while Adams was most certainly holding back and not saying much of what he would like to say, it is still no guarantee he will feel the same way when it comes down to whether he will return next season.
The team is almost certainly moving on from Carr at this point. But undoubtedly they’d prefer to have Adams onboard to give the next quarterback an All Pro target.
It seems to me the bigger question is not whether Adams will leave out of loyalty to Carr, but rather whether Adams would leave simply because at this point in his career, he doesn’t want to be part of an unstable situation.
In that regard, it will be up to McDaniels and Raiders brass to do everything they can to prove to Adams that there will be stability and that the team won’t be starting over entirely.
