New York Jets: What are the Jets getting in Davante Adams?

In a move that many have been clamoring for for months, the New York Jets acquired wide receiver Davante Adams via trade on Tuesday. Adams, a longtime favorite of quarterback Aaron Rodgers, has been one of the NFL's best wide receivers in recent years, and undoubtedly improves the New York Jets roster in 2024.

But just how good has Adams been? Statistically he's seen a bit of a falloff as he had over 1500 yards in 2022, but only 1100 yards in 2023 before missing games in 2024 due to "injury." However, some of that lesser output could be attributed to the rather poor quarterback play that he was subjected to as a Las Vegas Raider .

So how good is Adams? To answer that question, I used playerprofiler to look at some of his advanced analytics. Specifically, I opted to look at 2023 since this season has been a bit abnormal with the supposed injury and 2022 just feels a bit far away at this point. With that said, here are some of his 2023 stats (with his league rank in parentheses):

Targets: 175 (2) Target share: 33.1 (2) Slot snaps: 111 (106) Air yards: 1896 (3) Air yards share: 44.2% (1) Target depth: 10.8 (54) Catchable target rate: 66.9% (69) Receptions: 103 (9) Receiving yards: 1144 (15) Yards after the catch: 336 (25) Unrealized air yards: 1088 (1) Yards per route run: 2.03 (30) Formation adjusted yards per route run: 1.68 (29) True catch rate: 88.0% (61) Drops: 7 (2 which I have to assume is based on his 4% drop rate) Route win rate: 49.5% (10) Long story short, Davante Adams was THE focal point of the Raiders passing offense last season. He put up some very strong numbers even if his receiving yards were lower than what he has put up in other seasons. However, his outputs could have been significantly better in 2023 if his QB play had been better, as evidenced by his strong rate stats (e.g., route win rate, true catch rate) and his unrealized air yards figure that ranked first in the league and nearly matched his actual receiving yards.

Given that, Adams may not be so much in decline as he was a victim of a poor situation, because the playerprofiler numbers sure makes it seem like he was winning where he needed to. The question now is whether the Jets can get him the ball because, if so, he could massively upgrade their offense.