The fantasy implications of the Jets trading for Davante Adams

Does Davante Adams replace Garrett Wilson, or is he a 1A?

When news first broke 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 connected a team desperate to get rid of Adams with a team that hardly needed Adams but did need a shakeup. It was also a correct assumption.

The Jets finally traded for Adams on Tuesday, 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 the entire crime scene in New York, but let’s start with the most important question:

How soon can Davante Adams be New York’s leading receiver?

In Adams’ final year with Rodgers, 2021, he exceeded six targets in all but one start. Adams finished with a fantasy slash line 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 they had was undeniable in a way that Rodgers has yet to develop with Garrett Wilson.

Adams is recovering from a hamstring injury that has caused him to miss the last three weeks, and we should probably start with a modest WR3 grade for him for his first week back because there are so many unknowns with the Jets offense at this point. Brand new play caller, brand new wideout. But I would be surprised if Adams wasn’t the primary receiver for the Jets soon, probably as early as Week 8.

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

If you held on to Williams and hoped against hope that he would become something, I think you can safely give him up at this point.

Lazard will likely have playable FLEX weeks ahead even with Adams, though it will be hard to say which weeks those are in advance. But the target volume gobbled up by Adams and Garrett Wilson will likely be too much for him to overcome as a true fantasy option.

Wilson, who you no doubt drafted as a fantasy WR1, is now likely headed for the WR2/WR3 line. It really seemed like he did a better job in Todd Downing’s attack on Monday night, with more manufactured touches and looks that Rodgers didn’t need to mindmeld with him to create.

It’s the lack of mindmeld and chemistry — something Jets beats have been harping on all season — that makes it harder to trust Wilson in the future, and was one of the main reasons the Jets pulled the trigger on this trade . I don’t think we’re treating Wilson as someone who would rush or drop. He’s simply too talented for that. But I’d be willing to weather a storm while he’s not that productive, and I hope to be pleasantly surprised. It’s more likely that the Jets continue to make details for him, and possibly enough to keep him in good fantasy. But he’ll likely become less of a target on key third downs 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 has seen his target rate increase while Adams has been out, posting 8/97/1 on 12 targets in Week 5 and 9/71/0 on 10 targets in Week 6. The Raiders simply don’t have much talent in the passing department. skills. Last week their wide receiver room was Tre Tucker and a bunch of 27/28 year old career bruisers. Things were so bad that they used DJ Turner – a player who gets the (wide receiver) subtext on Wikipedia – as their No. 2 wideout.

Meyers missed last week with an ankle injury, but when he returns it seems clear that he and Bowers will both get all the targets they can handle, with Tucker providing an additional boom-bust option in an offense that rarely tries to throw deep. Despite trailing for most of the second half, Aidan O’Connell had just 4.5 air yards per attempt and a deep throw rate of 7.5%. This is a dink-and-dunk, PPR scam.

Luckily for Bowers, PPR scams are literally the best you can hope for in fantasy TE1 this year. Meyers, if he gets healthy, will end up as the secondary scam and likely be WR3/FLEX ace for the next few weeks. A useful player to select, not someone you want to start with.

Can Breece Hall get a boost from this trade?

It’s natural to see this trade and think “Breece Hall will benefit from them unstacking the box” – the problem is that Hall already has one of the lowest stacked box rates in the NFL, putting him at just 13, Facing 3 percent of his attempts in six attempts. to soften.

I do think teams will eventually have to give the Jets passing offense more respect, and Hall looked much better Monday night in a run offense that looked a little less stagnant. (The subtext here, if you haven’t figured it out yet, is that Nathaniel Hackett was so bad at being an NFL playcaller that pretty much every Jet saw a fantasy boost without him.) I wouldn’t be shocked if Hall got a little more room to play and room to roam as the defense now has to account for both Adams and Wilson.

I wouldn’t necessarily buy low on Hall because of the Adams trade – I think you could already argue that the buy low window has closed now that the offense has looked better under Downing – but I do think it gives him a different path to the positive side. thought he would do that when everyone spent the entire offseason debating him and Bijan Robinson for fantasy’s RB2.