LOS ANGELES – It was early in the morning in Japan when Davante Adams first heard from Sean McVay, but the message from the Rams coach was clear.
We want you in Los Angeles.
McVay said — and showed — that to Adams as he recruited him over the phone, sending the receiver clips of his highlights and talking about how he would use Adams in his case.
It didn’t take long for Adams to realize that playing for McVay in Los Angeles was where he “needed to be.” Adams signed a two-year, $44 million contract in March and currently has a cap hit of $28 million through 2026.
In Los Angeles, Adams found a place he believed he could win with a good quarterback and the ability to be “in a good enough place with a coach where I feel like I can go and be successful and build on what I’ve already done.”
Adams wanted that in part because he hadn’t checked all three of those boxes over the past few seasons.
In March 2022, the veteran wide receiver requested a trade from the Green Bay Packers, where he spent the first eight years of his career. He said he wanted a fresh start, and almost three years later, he was looking for a place he wanted to be long-term.
He thought that was the Las Vegas Raiders in 2022, with former college player Derek Carr and new coach Josh McDaniels. When that didn’t go well, Adams requested a trade through the 2024 season to the New York Jets to reunite with quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who he played with in Green Bay.
During the Rams’ offseason program in June, Adams said that in his short time in Los Angeles, there was no “dark cloud over the building” that he had with previous teams.
“It’s a big difference when you walk into a building like this,” Adams said.
Six months later, Adams, 33, and the Rams won one game in the playoffs and are playing in the divisional round against the Chicago Bears on Saturday. It’s Adams’ first playoff win since being with the Packers in the 2020 season, something he said after the Rams’ wild-card victory.
And when Adams is asked if he got what he wanted when he left Green Bay, he doesn’t hesitate to answer.
“Coming here, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for all along,” Adams told ESPN.
WHILE ADAMS in town to sign his contract with the Rams in March, he and McVay had dinner at The Bird Streets Club in West Hollywood.
“They were two football geniuses talking about X’s and O’s,” Adams said. The two were talking about the art of creating separation at the line of scrimmage, where the receiver jumps to signal the release.
“We didn’t have a lot of looks,” McVay said. “I think people were like, ‘That’s cool s— right there.’
McVay had admired Adams’ film for years and said from what he heard from Packers coach Matt LaFleur — former Rams coordinator and one of McVay’s “closest friends” — he thought Adams “would be a good fit.” But McVay said as he got to know Adams during the free agency process and began to “feel the way his brain works,” he realized how similar the two were.
“I think we are very similar in personality [and with our] competition,” McVay said. “And we have a great relationship that I value and it continues to grow.”
Adams said he appreciates the culture McVay has built during his nine seasons in Los Angeles, one with a “college kind of camaraderie.” Rams receiver Puka Nacua remembers during practice, Adams said to his surprise the “mixed units” were among the team. In fact, it was something Adams said he noticed immediately.
“I don’t think I’ve seen a quarterback and a punter talk like I do since I’ve been here, or a kicker and a punter, whoever it is,” Adams said in June. “There’s just a lot of overlap. Even within myself, I found it took me a little longer to integrate with the Jets team than it did to get here. I knew a lot of guys on this team even. So it depends, and a lot of that had to do with me leaving. [to New York] during the season.”
Second-year Rams outside linebacker Jared Verse said Adams was his “favorite” player growing up, so when Verse realized the two would be teammates, he said, “I thought I was going to be nervous talking to him.”
Instead, Adams became “someone I can honestly talk to,” Verse said. “We had a good discussion. If I have problems in my life, I will come and talk to him.”
Rams backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, who was Adams’ quarterback in Vegas in 2023, said Adams is “more open than he was with the Raiders.”
“In the lunch room, I’m talking to people and things like that,” Garoppolo said. “But I think that starts with the leaders of this team. When you see that and everyone is acting that way, you just fall into place and you don’t have a choice.”
Adams and Garoppolo played together for half of the 2023 season before the veteran quarterback was benched for rookie Aidan O’Connell. Later, in an interview for the Netflix series “Receiver,” Adams said he “signed off” on the bench. During training camp this year, Adams was asked about his relationship with Garoppolo in an ESPN LA radio interview.
“I love Jimmy,” Adams said in July. “It wasn’t personal. … Obviously, that was just a dark moment in all of our lives. I think we were all sad out there. And we got caught up and laughed about it and we’ve been doing plays since we got out here, so it was fun.”
ON SUNDAY 6 against the Baltimore Ravens, Adams and quarterback Matthew Stafford missed several attempts in the red zone. Stafford said the first out in that game was “just two throws that I really missed.” But the missed connection was unlike what the pair had been working on earlier in the season as they learned each other’s body language and how to get on the same page.
Adams and Stafford did not get a full training camp, as Stafford missed most of the preseason while dealing with a back injury.
“I think it was more frustrating than I showed,” Adams said. “But it’s because you had high expectations and as you say, as he is, as I am, you expect things to come true.
“And I played with a guy, the same guy, for nine years. So to have the ability to play with someone who really knows and to go somewhere with another great quarterback and not work, it can be frustrating. But it was something that I felt was necessary for us to grow. And I had to approach it as mature as possible. And like I said, it was not easy to work with him, but it was not easy to work with him, but it was not easy for you.”
Stafford called Adams “a great teammate,” saying he showed it early in the season “when maybe I wasn’t getting the ball in good spots and we struggled to hit a few things.”
The week after that game with the Ravens, the team spent a week in Baltimore, practicing at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, to spend a week on the East Coast before flying to London to play the Jaguars.
It was those practices in Baltimore, McVay said, where “the real success happened,” as the pair continued to accumulate practice reps.
“Time spent I think is a very important thing and it can be a living thing,” McVay said. “What I think you don’t want to do is push. Sometimes you want the worst thing you can’t reach and push and get away from the things that have allowed you to have successful results in previous stops. They continued to work.”
In their next game, Adams had five catches for 35 yards and three touchdowns. Over six games from Weeks 7-13, Adams scored 11 touchdowns.
“We have shown fluency in the past, but because of how the football was going and the flow of some of the games, we couldn’t always go into the games and make things go well,” said Adams about their coaches who ended up being successful. “So when we were able to make some things go together and around [the London game] it was a time when I felt like we were starting to collect. “
Adams said his season in Los Angeles “has been what I hoped it would be.” Unlike his previous two stops, the Rams have had some success of late, including an appearance in the running back game.
“There’s always a little bit of fear when you come into a new situation, when the team is successful and you’re hoping to come in and help and you’re like, okay, I hope it doesn’t end up worse than it was when I got there,” said Adams. “It’s one of those situations where I’m happy to be part of a team deal where I can go out and be myself.”
The results speak for themselves: 60 catches for 789 yards and a team-leading 14 touchdowns in 14 games. According to ESPN Research, Adams is the first player in NFL history to lead the league in that category with three different teams.
“I don’t have to be Hercules or anything, do anything but what I can do,” Adams said.
SUNDAY 15 against the Detroit Lions, Adams was running a route down the sideline early in the fourth quarter when he fell to the ground and sat down for some time. While playing, Adams strained his left hamstring, which began bothering him in Week 4. He ended up missing the final three games of the regular season.
As the Rams prepare for the regular season finale against the Arizona Cardinals, Adams is making a comeback effort. He participated in practice and was listed as limited Wednesday and Thursday and questionable for the game.
Later, McVay said the Rams are aware of Adams’ recovery, erring on the side of caution as they prepare for the playoffs.
“I know that he is very upset because of the opponent he is, but he has what I can see in his eyes and I know that he is ready to go. [for the playoffs].”
Adams said he was pushing to play, but he also said he has learned to trust McVay and the Rams in those situations.
“It’s hard, but I think he’s very smart and understanding and knows how much I love him,” McVay said.
Despite missing the final three games of the regular season, Adams finished with three more touchdowns than the next players on the list (Dallas Goedert, Tee Higgins, Trey McBride and Amon-Ra St. Brown). Adams is just the third player since 1940 to lead the league in receiving touchdowns despite missing three or more games, according to ESPN Research.
Nacua said returning him to the playoffs means “the defense will change in a different way to feel the threat and presence of Davante Adams.
“The threat he provides to our offense and the understanding that Matthew can look the other way and always throw the ball the other way, that’s always a threat.”
Adams had five catches for 72 yards Saturday against the Carolina Panthers, combining with Nacua for 31 of Stafford’s 42 targets in the game.
Now, with Adams and the Rams two wins away from his first trip to the Super Bowl, he said he knows he’s where he wants to be.
“I got a quarterback, great cast and just a tight end and a great city to play in,” Adams said. “So it doesn’t get much better than that.”
