Detroit Lions fans all tuned into Netflix’s latest collaboration with the NFL this week when Receiver dropped. Amon-Ra St. Brown was a very large part of the show and there was a lot to take away from this one.
Aside from St. Brown, one thing that was very hard to miss what the frustration that Raiders’ receiver Davante Adams had most of the season. It was especially hard to miss in the segment where the Raiders played the Lions on Monday Night Football. That was a bad night to be Davante Adams.
Naturally since this is the part that Lions fans saw the most of and there’s some questions at receiver, some questions began to arise about whether or not the Lions would be able to pull off a trade for Adams ahead of the 2024 season and what would the cost be.
We’ll start on the cost end. From a trade standpoint, it might not be that much considering that Adams is going to be 32-years-old next this season and this is going to be a cost cutting move for the Raiders. Here’s a proposal:
Lions get: Davante Adams
Raiders get: 2025 fourth-round and 2026 fourth-round pick
This is based off a few things. The first one being the Bears trade for Keenan Allen. It sort of sets the market for what some of the older receivers are going for right now. The Bears got Allen for a 2024 fourth-round pick. Since Adams is a bit better than Allen, he’s draw more.
The other thing is the cost cutting we mentioned before. The Raiders might not make this move now, but they probably will soon. Adams is slated to get $35 million for 2025 and just over $36 million for 2026.
His 2024 salary is guaranteed, but 2025 and 2026 aren’t, so the Raiders could get massive cap savings by moving off of him. That’s why they may be hasty to do it considering it would hurt them in the near future. The ball is sort of in the trade partners court in that scenario. The Bears just showed that when they were able to get Allen for just that fourth-round pick. The Chargers needed him off the books.
That cost though would be a big reason why the Lions would probably sit this one out though. The Lions could look to restructure the deal with Adams, but that would likely put him on the books for longer. It just doesn’t work. Honestly, the Lions might have a better chance of getting him in free agency next year because the Raiders best bet might be to just take their out after this season and part with him instead of trying to restructure and keep him on the books for longer.
Any way you lay it out, the possibility of Davante Adams being in Detroit in 2024 seems pretty impossible, even if the team can totally afford it right now. It’s just not the kind of contract you want on the books at the moment. He’ll have to stay in Las Vegas till the trade deadline at the earliest. Maybe Detroit could take a shot at a rental then and be the team that parts with him. But probably not.