When it comes to trading receiver Davante Adams, the Raiders don’t have the leverage they’d like. So they’re now trying to create some.
Adam Schefter of ESPN.com passes along the notion that the Raiders might not trade Adams at all.
Sure they won’t.
The Raiders are selling the possibility by pointing out that Adams is a big supporter of new starting quarterback Aidan O’Connell. As if that’s enough to put the Sin back in the City.
The deeper message is that the Raiders don’t have the natural leverage that comes from two teams trying to box each other out. Thus, the Raiders need to conjure the bargaining power that flows from saying, essentially, “Screw it, we’ll just keep him.”
While a mistake born of stubbornness can’t be discounted, it makes no sense. His salary spike to $35.64 million in 2025. The current season will be Adams’s last in Las Vegas, unless he agrees to take less next year. And if the Raiders cut him, they get no compensatory draft pick.
The only way to get anything for Adams — and the only way to stop paying him $983,333 per week — is to trade him. For now, the only way to have a chance to put the squeeze on the one team that wants him (presumably, the Jets) is to pretend they won’t trade him at all.
The other opportunity could come from an injury to a starting receiver with a contending team. There are still four weekends of football to be played until the trade deadline arrives. It’s possible that someone will become desperate enough to give the Raiders what they want, if their best receiver is lost for an extended period of time.
Until then, the Raiders need to pretend that they want to keep Adams and, more importantly, that he wants to stay.
One well-timed and very strategic Sunday Splash! report doesn’t change that.
