With a weekly salary of $983,333, the Raiders will be paying receiver Davante Adams to not play for them, until they trade him. Which means that, the sooner they trade him, the better.
The sooner a new team gets Adams, the more value a new team gets. It’s never easy to plug a new receiver into a new team, new offense, new locker room, new playbook, new everything.
The Raiders want a second-round pick. They’ve yet to soften on that. Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t.
The problem for the new team is that Adams’s contract balloons to $35.64 million in 2025. Without an extension, it’s a part-season rental.
Also, what are they really getting in Adams? He turns 32 in December. As one seasoned evaluator said when asked recently if Adams is still an A-lister, the response was, “B+.”
Those factors cut against giving up a second-round pick. Also helping the buyer’s cause is that fact that, in the offseason, the Bears gave up a fourth-round pick for 32-year-old Keenan Allen. Throw in the basic reality that the Raiders and Adams are ready to part ways, and that makes it even harder to get a second-round pick.
If the Raiders really want to emerge with a two, there’s two ways to do it. One, they can give him the bulk of his salary as a bonus and trade only the prorated minimum. (If that would be enough to do it.) That makes it not just a trade for a player, but the purchase of a higher draft pick for cash and cap space. (Think Brock Osweiler to Cleveland.)
Two, they can send a pick with Adams, like a fourth- or fifth-round pick, in exchange for a second-rounder. That gets them a second-round pick without it actually being a second-round pick.
There’s one other way to do it. Spark a bidding war. Currently, the reporting suggests that the Jets and Saints are both pursuing a trade. Are the Saints truly doing it, or are the Raiders trying to create that impression so that the Jets will overpay?
It wouldn’t be the first time the Jets got snookered. In 2019, they believed the BS about the Ravens pursuing running back Le’Veon Bell, grossly overpaying him when the Ravens absolutely weren’t in the hunt.
That’s the best argument for the Raiders to hold firm. The Jets might do a Jets thing and in a fit of desperation give the Raiders what they want.
Especially in light of the way things are currently going for the Jets in London.
