The fantasy implications of the Jets trading for Davante Adams
Does Davante Adams replace Garrett Wilson, or is he a 1A?
When news first broke that Adams was open to a trade, everyone immediately circled him to the New York Jets. It was cynical, a reading of the news cycle that clearly connected a team desperate to be rid of Adams with a team that barely needed Adams but needed a shake-up. It was also a correct assumption.
The Jets finally dealt for Adams on Tuesday, sending a conditional third-round pick in next year’s draft that can become a second-rounder based on Adams’ performance.
This trade has implications for the entire New York offense, but let’s start with the most important question:
How quickly can Davante Adams be New York’s most important receiver?
In Adams’ last year with Rodgers, 2021, he went over six targets in all but one of his starts. Adams finished with a 123/1,553/11 fantasy slash line. And while the two have not played together in two years, it’s hard to believe that they won’t pick right back up where they left off. The chemistry they had was undeniable in a way that Rodgers has yet to develop with Garrett Wilson.
Adams is recovering from a hamstring injury which has caused him to miss the last three weeks, and we should probably start with a modest WR3 grade on him for his first week back because there are so many unknowns with the Jets offense right now. Brand new play-caller, brand new wideout. But I would be surprised if Adams was not the most important receiver for the Jets shortly, likely as soon as Week 8.
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The fantasy losers of this trade are: Garrett Wilson, Allen Lazard, and Mike Williams
If you were holding on to Williams, hoping against hope that he’d become a thing, I think you can give up on him safely at this point.
Lazard will probably have playable FLEX weeks ahead even with Adams, though it’ll be hard to tell which weeks those are ahead of time. But the target volume that gets eaten up by Adams and Garrett Wilson will probably be too much for him to overcome as a real fantasy option.
Wilson, who you undoubtedly drafted as a fantasy WR1, is now probably headed to the WR2/WR3 borderline. He did genuinely look to be doing better in Todd Downing’s offense on Monday night, with more manufactured touches and looks that didn’t require Rodgers to have a mind meld with him to create.
It’s the lack of mind meld and chemistry – something Jets beats have harped on all offseason – that makes it tougher to trust Wilson going forward, and was one of the major reasons that the Jets pulled the trigger on this trade. I don’t think we treat Wilson as someone to rashly trade away or drop. He’s simply too talented for that. But I would be prepared to weather a storm with him not being quite as productive and hope to be happily surprised. It’s more likely the Jets continue to manufacture touches for him, and possibly enough to keep him in good fantasy graces. But on the key third downs, he probably will become less of a go-to target based on what we’ve seen the first six weeks of the season.
The fantasy winners of this trade: Jakobi Meyers and Brock Bowers
Bowers has seen his target rate spike with Adams out, posting 8/97/1 on 12 targets in Week 5 and 9/71/0 on 10 targets in Week 6. The Raiders simply aren’t trotting out much skill position talent. Last week their wide receiver room was Tre Tucker and a bunch of 27/28-year-old career practice squadders. Things were so bad that they were using DJ Turner – a player who gets the (wide receiver) subtext on Wikipedia – as their No. 2 wideout.
Meyers missed last week with an ankle injury, but when he gets back it seems clear that he and Bowers will both get all the targets they can handle, with Tucker an ancillary boom-bust option in an offense that rarely tries to throw deep. Despite trailing for most of the second half, Aidan O’Connell had just 4.5 air yards per attempt and a 7.5% deep throw rate. This is a dink-and-dunk, PPR scam offense.
Fortunately for Bowers, PPR scams are literally the best you can hope for at fantasy TE1 this year. Meyers, should he get healthy, will wind up as the secondary scam and probably be WR3/FLEX bait for the bye weeks. A useful player to roster, not somebody you’re excited to start.
Can Breece Hall get a boost from this trade?
It makes sense to see this trade and think “Breece Hall will benefit from them unstacking the box” – the problem is that Hall already has one of the lowest stacked box rates in the NFL, facing them on only 13.3 percent of his attempts through six weeks.
I do think that teams will eventually have to give the Jets passing offense more respect, and Hall looked much better Monday night in a run offense that looked a little less stagnant. (The subtext here, if you haven’t gotten it yet, is that Nathaniel Hackett was so bad at being an NFL playcaller that pretty much every Jet saw a fantasy boost without him.) I wouldn’t be shocked if Hall got a little more leeway and room to roam because defenses need to account for both Adams and Wilson now.
I wouldn’t necessarily buy low on Hall because of the Adams trade – I think you could already argue that the buy low window is closed now that the offense looked better under Downing – but I do think it gives him another path to the upside we thought he’d have when everyone debated him versus Bijan Robinson for fantasy’s RB2 all offseason.
