We did not see this one coming: Packers trade Davante Adams to the Raiders.

Live look at me last night at about 8pm when the Davante news broke:

First of all, could this trade have waited until Monday, Gutey? It’s Day 1 of the NCAA tournament. One of the biggest days in sports. I’m trying to grind out bets, teasers, parlays, my bracket is in shambles, I was not in the correct mental state to deal with the Packers trading the best wide receiver in the game.

Anyway, the nuts and bolts of the trade, which I’m sure you’ve already read about but I will put here anyway: The Packers send Davante to the Raiders, and in return they receive the Raiders 1st and 2nd round picks in the upcoming draft.

As I’ve said MANY times during this chaotic offseason, I always expected the Packers to put the franchise tag on Davante, but I always assumed that was a means to an end to give themselves more time to negotiate a deal. And given that they’re doling out extensions left and right to bring back their key players from last season, and that the salary cap seems like a figment of our imagination at this point, it just felt like they’d get this deal done before July. You’ve got the 2-time reigning, 4-time overall, MVP quarterback coming back on a 3 year extension. He’s going to be 39 years old in December and the title window is pretty small (especially given that they’ve come up short the last three seasons). It just felt natural that you wouldn’t cut bait on arguably the best wide receiver in the league when he’s 29 years old.

But this tweet from Ian Rapoport gave at least a little bit of clarity:

From the sounds of it, Davante just flat out did not want to be in Green Bay anymore. Was he sour on anything in particular? Did his relationship strain with Gutey in some way? Aaron and Davante seemed to get along well on the field, but maybe there was some drama there? Maybe it has literally nothing to do with anything in Green Bay at all and he just wanted to play for a different team with his college quarterback, Derek Carr. I guess it’s hard for us as Packer fans to fathom leaving a team with a HOF quarterback, a team that is a mortal lock to win their division and make the playoffs, and potentially win a Super Bowl, for the Raiders.

BUT, plenty of people all over the world leave great jobs for other jobs, just for a change of scenery. Perhaps it’s nothing more than that. I think Davante was already on the HOF track and would have been a lock after 3 more years with Aaron throwing him the football, but maybe he goes to Vegas and tears it up there too. Maybe he wants to prove he can be just as successful somewhere else. I/we don’t know. None of us really know Davante and he doesn’t have to explain anything to anyone (but if he did I can think of a small market blog that would be more than willing to share the news).

At the end of the day, the Packers offered him the biggest contract for a wide receiver in NFL history, they reworked the cap into a pretzel to try and bring every key component of last year’s team back, but this one didn’t work out.

So, now what? My immediate thought was, ‘Christ, I hope the ink is dry on Aaron’s contract.’ And as it turns out, Rodgers seems to have been privy to this the whole time:

I guess that’s good at least? Right now the wide receivers on the Packer roster are: Randall Cobb, Amari Rodgers, and Allen Lazard. YEESH. Love Cobb and Lazard, but clearly you need to add speed, and a big play element to that group. And you also have to hope that Amari Rodgers takes a pretty big leap from being essentially useless in his rookie year.

My guess is that MVS is a lock to come back on a 1 or 2 year deal at this point. I don’t mind it. He’s got blazing speed and despite his drop issues in his first two seasons, he will still stretch the field.

Beyond that I’m not really sure. It seems like a lock that they’d draft at LEAST one receiver with all of these 1st and 2nd round picks. But that doesn’t mean that player is going to immediately have an impact on a team hoping to win a Super Bowl. Remember how much Davante struggled his first two seasons before becoming an All Pro? The Packers don’t have the luxury of waiting 2-ish years for a young wide receiver to get comfortable. And in terms of what’s out there for free agents, it looks a little bleak. OBJ will be available but probably not until November at the earliest. Julio Jones was just cut by the Titans but he’s 33 years old and clearly on the downside of a great career. Maybe Aaron could squeeze whatever’s left out of him? JuJu Smith Schuster is out there I suppose, Jarvis Landry, AJ Green. But with any of those names you’re just praying there’s an, ‘Aaron Rodgers is so good he’ll make them decent again despite their age,’ factor in play.

Maybe the Seahawks would trade DK Metcalf given that it looks like they’re in a rebuild? Packers have draft collateral now. Maybe even Tyler Lockett would be on the block.

Bottom line: The Packers are still the overwhelming NFC North favorites, they’ve got a lot of time to figure this out, but this was a land mine that not a lot of fans saw coming.

PS: I know it is prepostorous to suggest that the Packers are better without Davante, but they were 7-0 without him in the LaFleur-era. And if I remember those games correctly, it did seem like Rodgers spread the ball around more and played more within the confines of the offense. Again, it’s insane to say that losing the best WR in the game makes you better, but those other points we just mentioned aren’t nothing.

Double PS: Turns out that whole ‘Last Dance’ thing might have been about Davante the whole time, eh?