GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Davante Adams began the NFL playoffs with a clean slate. Now the Green Bay Packers' second-year wide receiver has a new nickname and -- if his knee injury turns out to be as minor as he thinks it is -- more opportunities to erase any lingering disappointment over his regular-season struggles.
Adams had four receptions for 48 yards, including a 10-yard touchdown, before suffering a right knee injury during the second half of the Packers’ 35-18 NFC wild-card victory over the Washington Redskins on Sunday.
After watching him catch four passes for 54 yards in the team’s loss to Minnesota in the regular-season finale, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers predicted that Adams might be poised to be a difference-maker in the playoffs.
Given the high expectations Rodgers and coach Mike McCarthy put on Adams during the offseason, the fact that Rodgers was willing to go out on a limb for Adams -- albeit a slightly shorter one than he had in June -- was worth noting.
“This is the time of year where he starts to take off,” Rodgers said at midweek, recalling Adams’ breakout games as a rookie last year against New England late in the season (six catches for 121 yards) and against Dallas in the playoffs (seven catches for 117 yards and a touchdown). “Obviously, we put a lot of expectations on him and talked a lot about how he played in training camp. He gets a chance to bring it all back home during this run and be the player that we expect him to be.”
Just before halftime Sunday, Adams had a terrific third-down, 20-yard catch when he went up over a defender and caught the ball at its highest point. He then wriggled opened two plays later for a 10-yard touchdown that gave the Packers their first lead of the day.
“Davante’s turned into Mr. January around here,” Rodgers said with a smile afterward.
That certainly means more than being Mr. June (or the team’s “offseason MVP,” as McCarthy dubbed him at the time) and could make up for the disappointment of September, October, November and December, when Adams had only 46 receptions for 429 yards and one touchdown on 87 targets. Adams missed three games and parts of two others with an early-season ankle injury that clearly affected him, but he also admitted last week that his up-and-down season wasn’t solely the result of the injury.
“It really doesn’t matter what happened before,” Adams said of the fresh start the postseason would provide. “I’ve said from the jump that I can do what I can do. No matter what happened throughout the season, I still have confidence in my abilities.”
Adams also expressed confidence after the game that his knee injury won’t keep him out of Saturday’s NFC divisional-playoff showdown at Arizona. “I think I’ll be fine,” he said multiple times, but it will be important for him to practice when the Packers return to the field on Wednesday.
Both McCarthy and offensive coordinator Edgar Bennett pointed to Adams’ work during the past week as being crucial to his turnaround. “Davante’s really had his best two weeks of practice,” McCarthy said, adding that it led to him expecting a big game from Adams against the Redskins.
Bennett, the former wide receivers coach, pointed specifically to Adams’ “fine-tuning” of his route-running.
“It’s shown up the last couple weeks,” Bennett said. “Again, it’s attention to detail, all the little things and he has [done those things]. He’s put together two really good weeks of practice.
“It’s little things like that that he will continue to need to do as we move forward.”