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Ex-NFL GM: Davante Adams’ speech to Jets is ‘a sad comment on the team’ | News, results, highlights, statistics and rumors

Ex-NFL GM: Davante Adams’ speech to Jets is ‘a sad comment on the team’ | News, results, highlights, statistics and rumors

FOXBOROUGH, MASSACHUSETTS – OCTOBER 27: Davante Adams #17 of the New York Jets runs across the field before the game at Gillette Stadium on October 27, 2024 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Photo by Adam Glanzman/Getty Images)

Adam Glanzman/Getty Images

Davante Adams is a veteran wide receiver who saw an opportunity to give his new team some leadership after a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 7, but some around the league believe that said more about the New York Jets than anything else .

“It’s a sad commentary on the team that someone on the outside has to tell them what they’re doing wrong,” a former NFC general manager said in a Thursday ESPN segment Rich Cimini.

A Jets player also smiled and offered “no comment” when asked how it felt to have a new teammate shut out the team after a loss in their first game.

New York switched to Adams before this game, which ended in a convincing 37-15 win for the Steelers.

Cimini explained that the wide receiver’s postgame speech “incited enthusiasm” from quarterback Aaron Rodgers and interim coach Jeff Ulbrich, who even “used it as a rallying cry leading up to the game against New England.”

According to Cimini, “Adams sensed an alarming ‘lack of energy and urgency’ on the field in Pittsburgh and felt compelled to address it immediately after the game, even though he had only been with the team for a few days.”

This apparent lack of urgency from the Jets reflected the GM’s comments, and the results didn’t change the following game. The New England Patriots stunned Rodgers and Co. with a 25-22 victory, dropping New York’s record to 2-6.

This is a team that is supposedly in a win-now window, with the 40-year-old Rodgers under center surrounded by plenty of weapons like Adams, Garrett Wilson, Breece Hall and others.

Instead, the Jets sit in last place in the AFC East at 2-6 and need a quick turnaround if they want to have a role in the playoff race.

Perhaps that turnaround begins Thursday against a Houston Texans team that will be without wide receivers Nico Collins and Stefon Diggs.

If that’s not the case, it will take a lot more than an Adams speech to save the Jets season.