Hey, Joe Douglas: Time is now for Davante Adams and Jets

Davante Adams wants out of Las Vegas for a long-awaited reunion with Aaron Rodgers. 

Aaron Rodgers has long wanted a reunion with Davante Adams. 

This is the Now or Never season for the Jets. 

Memo to Joe Douglas: Go get him. 

Who can be certain how much longer Rodgers will decide to play should he be subjected to more of the beatings he took against the Broncos? 

Haason Reddick has requested a trade from the Jets. Trade him to the Raiders if that’s what it will take. 

Disgruntled star for disgruntled star for starters. The trade deadline is Nov. 5. 

Or a second-round pick as part of the compensation — as the Raiders have reportedly requested in any deal — for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to win a Super Bowl for a franchise that has won one Super Bowl in its lifetime? Go for it. 

Adams has base salaries of $35.6M in 2025 and 2026. None of it is guaranteed. 

He is making $16.9 million in base salary this season. 

Douglas and Robert Saleh can’t worry about 2025 or 2026. They have every reason in the world to worry about 2024. 

Reddick is due to make a non-guaranteed $14.25M this season, in the final year of his deal. 

It would not be without risk: Adams is 32 and nursing a hamstring injury that kept him out of last week’s game. In three games, he has 18 catches for 209 yards and a touchdown. And that’s with Gardner Minshew throwing him the ball. 

But pairing Adams and Garrett Wilson would give defenses a pick-your-poison reality. 

Wilson has been suffocated so far this season with free-agent addition Mike Williams on a pitch count. 

Rodgers has repeatedly likened Wilson to Adams but his chemistry with Wilson (20-191-1 TD) has yet to materialize. 

Douglas has previously attempted to trade for Adams but was rebuffed by the Raiders. Adams towed the party line, but it was more of a grin-and-bear-it mindset that seems to have soured with Minshew as his quarterback. 

“If I were to be reunited with anybody, it would be with Aaron, or be relocated anywhere” Adams said over the summer, “it would be with Aaron.” 

He also said: “I’m locked in with the Raiders and I really feel good about this team, and as far as I know they feel good about me. If that ever changes, if that got to a point where they weren’t feeling the same way, I ain’t done playing, so obviously we would figure out whatever we needed to figure out.” 

Rodgers at the American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe this sumer: “I love Davante. Can’t wait to play with him.” Then he added: “again.” 

In eight seasons together in Green Bay, before the blockbuster Adams trade to the Raiders in 2022, Adams caught 669 passes for 8,121 yards with 73 TDs. Rodgers won back-to-back league MVPs in 2020-21. From 2020-23, Adams exceeded 100 catches and 1,000 yards each season. 

Toward the end of the 2021 season, Rodgers called Adams the best teammate he has ever had. “The type of dominance I’ve seen from Davante warrants that kind of praise,” Rodgers said. 

The feeling has always been mutual. 

“He had the Michael Jordan effect,” Adams said once. “He’s gonna make you play better … just by being on the field.” 

Pack to the Future. Because the Future Is Now.