Fantasy Fallout: Jets finally acquire Davante Adams

The fantasy implications of the Jets trade for Davante Adams

Is Davante Adams replacing Garrett Wilson or is he a 1A?

When it was first announced that Adams was open to a trade, everyone immediately sent him to the New York Jets. It was cynical, a reading of the news cycle that clearly drew a connection between a team desperate to get rid of Adams and a team that barely needed Adams but was in need of a shakeup. It was also a correct assumption.

On Tuesday, the Jets finally made the deal for Adams, sending a conditional third-round pick in next year's draft who could become a second-rounder based on Adams' performance.

This trade has implications for New York's entire offense, but let's start with the most important question:

How quickly can Davante Adams become New York's premier receiver?

In Adams' final year with Rodgers, 2021, he surpassed six targets in all but one start. Adams finished with a fantasy slash line of 123/1553/11. And even though the two haven't played together in two years, it's hard to believe they won't pick up where they left off. The chemistry between them was undeniable, in a way that Rodgers hasn't yet developed with Garrett Wilson.

Adams is recovering from a hamstring injury that caused him to miss the last three weeks, and we should probably start with a modest WR3 grade for his first week since there are so many unknowns in the Jets' offense right now. Brand new play-caller, brand new wideout. But I would be surprised if Adams isn't the Jets' primary receiver shortly, probably as early as Week 8.

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The fantasy losers in this trade are: Garrett Wilson, Allen Lazard and Mike Williams

If you're holding on to Williams, hoping against hope that he would amount to something, I think you can safely give up on him at this point.

Lazard will likely have playable FLEX weeks ahead of him even with Adams, although it will be difficult to say which weeks ahead. But the target volume that Adams and Garrett Wilson are devouring will likely be too much for him to overcome as a true fantasy option.

Wilson, who you undoubtedly drafted as a fantasy WR1, is now probably headed to the WR2/WR3 boundary. On Monday night, he really seemed to be doing better in Todd Downing's offense, with more artificial moves and looks that Rodgers didn't need a mind-meld with him to execute.

It's the lack of cohesion and chemistry – something the Jets beats have been harping on throughout the offseason – that makes it harder to trust Wilson going forward and was one of the main reasons the Jets failed at this one Swap pressed the shutter button. I don't think we're treating Wilson as someone who can be quickly traded away or dropped. He's just too talented for that. But I'd be willing to weather a storm where he wouldn't be quite as productive and hope to be happily surprised. It's more likely that the Jets continue to make moves for him, and perhaps enough to keep him in good fantasy quality. But in those crucial third losses, he's likely to become less of a preferred target based on what we've seen through the first six weeks of the season.

The fantasy winners of this trade: Jakobi Meyers and Brock Bowers

Bowers saw his target rate increase when Adams was out, going 8/97/1 on 12 targets in Week 5 and 9/71/0 on 10 targets in Week 6. The Raiders simply don't boast a lot of positional talent. Last week, Tre Tucker and a group of 27/28-year-old professional practice occupiers were their wide receiver room. Things were going so badly that they drafted DJ Turner — a player who gets the subtext “wide receiver” on Wikipedia — as the No. 2 wideout.

Meyers missed last week with an ankle injury, but when he returns it seems clear that he and Bowers will both hit all the targets they can handle, with Tucker an additional boom-bust option in an offense that's rare tries to throw into the depths. Despite trailing for most of the second half, Aidan O'Connell averaged just 4.5 yards per attempt and a 7.5% shooting percentage. This is a PPR fraud offense.

Luckily for Bowers, PPR scams are literally the best thing you could ask for in fantasy TE1 this year. Should Meyers get healthy, he will end up as a secondary receiver and likely serve as WR3/FLEX bait in the first few weeks. A useful player for the squad, not someone you'd necessarily want to start.

Can Breece Hall get a boost from this trade?

It makes sense to see this trade and think that “Breece Hall will benefit if they take the box out of the stack” – the problem is that Hall already has one of the lowest stacked box rates in the NFL and facing them on only 13.3 percent of his attempts through six weeks.

I think teams need to show the Jets' passing offense more respect at some point, and Hall looked much better Monday night in a run offense that was a little less stagnant. (The subtext here, in case you haven't caught it yet, is that Nathaniel Hackett was so bad at being an NFL playcaller that pretty much every Jet felt a fantasy boost without him.) I wouldn't be shocked if Hall was a Little of it would get more space and room to maneuver since the defense now has to account for both Adams and Wilson.

Because of the Adams trade, I wouldn't necessarily buy Hall at a low price – I think one could already argue that the window to buy at a low price is now closed as the offense looked better under Downing – but I think that it gives him another path up I thought he did when everyone was debating him and Bijan Robinson for Fantasy's RB2 in the offseason.