Ex-NFL GM: Davante Adams’ Speech to Jets Is ‘a Sad Commentary on the Team’

Davante Adams is a veteran wide receiver who saw an opportunity to provide some leadership for his new team following a Week 7 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, but some around the league believe that said more about the New York Jets than anything else.

“It’s a sad commentary on the team, that someone from the outside has to tell them what they’re doing wrong,” a former NFC general manager said in a Thursday story by ESPN’s Rich Cimini.

A player on the Jets also smiled and offered “no comment” when asked how it felt to have a new teammate calling out the team following a loss in his first game.

New York traded for Adams ahead of that contest, which ended in a convincing 37-15 victory for the Steelers.

Cimini explained the wide receiver’s postgame speech “drew raves” from quarterback Aaron Rodgers and interim coach Jeff Ulbrich, who even “used it as a rallying cry during the run-up to the game against New England.”

According to Cimini, “Adams sensed an alarming ‘lack of energy and urgency’ on the field in Pittsburgh and felt compelled to address it immediately after the game, even though he had been on the team for only a few days.”

That apparent lack of urgency from the Jets echoes the comments from the GM, and the results didn’t change in the following game. The New England Patriots stunned Rodgers and Co. with a 25-22 victory, which dropped New York’s record to 2-6.

This is a team that is supposed to be in a win-now window with the 40-year-old Rodgers under center surrounded by no shortage of weapons in Adams, Garrett Wilson, Breece Hall and others.

Instead, the Jets are in last place in the AFC East at 2-6 and will need a quick turnaround if they are going to be factors in the playoff race.

Perhaps that turnaround will start Thursday against a Houston Texans team that will be without wide receivers Nico Collins and Stefon Diggs.

If it doesn’t, it will require a lot more than an Adams speech to save the Jets season.