In thinking back to last season, the casual fan may label 2024 as an underwhelming year for now-Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Davante Adams. He started the season with the Las Vegas Raiders before being acquired by the New York Jets to satisfy Aaron Rodgers in what ended up being a lost season in the Big Apple.
His NFL team may not have had the success they envisioned, but fantasy football managers were just fine with the output.
2024 Per Game WR Splits (min. 10 games played)
- Routes: 37.1 (seventh)
- Receptions: 6.1 (seventh)
- Targets: 10.1 (fourth)
- Receiving yards: 75.9 (eighth)
- Receiving Touchdowns: 0.6 (12th)
If that is what we are labeling as a “down” season, imagine what we will see in 2025, a year in which he has a full offseason with the team he spends the entire season with.
Of course, age concerns are at play here (age-32 season), and Adams is again banking on a past-his-prime QB to feature him at a high level despite the presence of a considerably younger star counterpart.
Adams carries plenty of risk and reward entering 2025. Are sharp managers rolling the dice or letting someone else draft this big name?
Davante Adams Fantasy Outlook
There are two sides to Adams’ profile. Either you’re comfortable with what you saw last season and love the move to Los Angeles to play with Matthew Stafford, or you’re beholden to the age curve and see more risk than reward in Adams as he enters his age-32 season.
Davante Adams’ route running 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/KEsFUyhmv8
— Football’s Greatest Moments (@FBGreatMoments) June 23, 2025
Can both be right?
Adams earned 10.4 targets (6.1 catches) per game last season from good friend, and similarly weathered, Rodgers with the Jets last season. That should help squash some of your concerns about the Stafford part of this, though it should be noted that he doesn’t have the track record with him as he did with Rodgers.
That said, the Jets were creative in deploying Adams next to a star receiver on the rise, something that it’s very reasonable to believe Sean McVay can replicate, if not improve. Last season, 45.4% of his routes came out of the slot, a spot on the field that may come with slightly less per catch upside, but certainly elevates the expected points of every look due to the high efficiency nature of them.
Were there signs of physical decline at points? Sure, but fantasy bills are paid in the paydirt, and when it comes to that specific skill, there have been no signs of age-based regression for Adams.
- 2019-21 (final three Packer seasons): 33.3% red-zone target rate
- 2022-24: 34.6% red-zone target rate
It’s fair to worry about a replication of the volume that we got from Adams a season ago. Still, if the targets he earns are of high value, he positions himself as the rare asset that doesn’t need a high-end opportunity count to post high-end results.
MORE: Free Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator
But there are two sides to this coin, and Father Time looms. Last season, it took 14.5 PPR points per game to be WR20, my cut-off for the “I’m starting him every week and not thinking twice about it” tier.
Over the past decade, only three receivers have hit that threshold in an age-32+ season:
- Larry Fitzgerald (2015, 2016, and 2017)
- Julian Edelman (2018 and 2019)
- Antonio Brown (2020 and 2021)
How you read that stat will tell you where you stand on Adams in 2025. Did you see it and think “hey, three guys have done it and Adams is that sort of outlier” or “man, only three guys have done it, I don’t want to bet on an outlier.”?
Based on where the prices have settled, I’m in the middle, but I seem to be slightly in favor of the latter. He’s a fringe top-20 receiver for me, not because I’m doubting his potential, but that this range is loaded with young receivers on the rise (the Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s and Marvin Harrison Jr.’s of the world).
Personally, I’d prefer to chase those potential league-winning profiles in the first handful of rounds and secure high-floor players in the middle rounds. That said, there are multiple paths to victory, and I think you can get there with Adams, as long as you have a plan to account for some of the risk that comes with counting on a receiver a bit long in the tooth.
Cameron Sheath‘s Davante Adams Fantasy Projection
Davante Adams has a far better shot at finishing as a WR1 this season than many give him credit for. At WR16 in ADP, it’s expected that the former Packer will play second fiddle to Puka Nacua (ADP WR5) in 2025, in more of a complementary role.
What is far more likely is that both receivers will be peppered with targets throughout the year and will both record multiple week-winning performances. Veteran WR Cooper Kupp was a star in fantasy when healthy, even when playing alongside Nacua.
From Week 9 onward last season, Adams was the WR3 in fantasy points per game. He’s no longer with his friend Aaron Rodgers, but Matthew Stafford is a proven fantasy kingmaker. When playing over 50% of snaps in 2023, Kupp averaged 8.55 targets per game alongside Nacua, who had 160 targets of his own that season. Over 17 games, that average would total 145 targets, which would have tied Jerry Jeudy for the seventh-most among receivers last season.
Adams is one of the very best receivers in the league, in a hugely rewarding role, and should prove one of the steals of the year in the fourth round of drafts.
