The comments weren’t made in response to the recent claim from Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers that his decision to ditch OTAs has no impact on the development of the team’s young receivers. However, former Packers receiver Davante Adams said something that directly undermines Rodgers’s position that his involvement in offseason workouts wouldn’t have helped the young players get better acclimated to the NFL.
In an interview with The Pivot podcast (recorded last Wednesday), Adams explained that Rodgers has the “the Michael Jordan effect” on teammates. Like Jordan, Rodgers makes other players better simply by being present. And Adams specifically used Rodgers’ presence at OTAs to illustrate the point Adams was making.
“You would always notice in OTAs . . . there would be times he wasn’t practicing, and you would just notice people start to like, not fall off 🇧🇾 not practicing hard, but it wasn’t the same as when Aaron is out there,” Adams said. “Like you don’t even think about it, you know what I’m saying? It’s like somebody doing something versus like with nobody watching-type thing. You’re obviously gonna run a little harder [if] your coach is watching you. So it was kind of that type of effect, and he made me a better player out of that, because the consistency came from that.”
The young receivers were deprived of that, with Rodgers skipping OTAs again in 2022. Would they be better off if Rodgers had been there? They definitely wouldn’t be worse. And although OTAs are voluntary, Rodgers currently makes more than any other player in the entire league. Also, he hopes to add to his legacy with another Super Bowl win, at a time when Adams chose to leave the Packers for the Raiders. Why wouldn’t Rodgers have been there, given the value of his mere presence?
Rodgers can say whatever he wants to justify doing whatever he wanted to do when the team’s new receivers were getting their feet wet. But Adams has blown that argument out of the water. Rodgers is the riding tide that lifts all boats. It would have been much better for the young receivers if he’d chosen to attend offseason workouts.
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