Davante Adams set to make a big jump up Packers career receiving leaderboard

Had injuries not limited him to just 12 games in 2019, Davante Adams would have finished the season with a giant leap up the Packers’ all-time receiving leaderboard. Adams has piled up 5,194 yards in his six seasons with the Packers so far, and season number seven should see him enter the company of some of the biggest wide receiver names in the Packers’ long history.

As it stands, his six-year total puts him just one yard behind James Jones for 13th on the all-time yardage list. Adams has averaged just over 1,089 yards per season over the last three years, so a merely average year for him would push him into the top-10 all-time in receiving yards, jumping past Jones, Carroll Dale, Randall Cobb, and Billy Howton.

However, if Adams can duplicate his 2018 effort and put up about 1,300 yards, he’ll also push past Max McGee for the ninth spot on the all-time list, setting him up for a 2021 season in which he’ll likely pass Greg Jennings, Antonio Freeman, and Boyd Dowler.

Adams is already among the top-10 Packers all-time in receptions, tying Antonio Freeman for the eighth spot on that list with 431. If Adams catches 80 balls this year (slightly behind his three-year average), he’ll be among the Packers’ top five all-time in receptions, surpassing the great Don Hutson for that honor.

(And as an aside, it’s always worth mentioning that Hutson compiled his 488 career catches in an era when passing was viewed as something more akin to witchcraft than a legitimate strategy.)

Finally, Adams may also make a big jump on the Packers’ career receiving touchdown list, too. Touchdowns can be a bit hard to predict, but Adams has always been able to find the end zone regularly, notching 44 so far in his career. With a fairly modest seven touchdowns, Adams will both surpass the 50 TD career threshold and sneak past James Jones, James Lofton, and Max McGee on the all-time list, landing him comfortably at seventh all-time. A nine touchdown season would see him tied with Greg Jennings for sixth. And another 13 touchdown season (like his 2018 campaign) would put him even with Antonio Freeman at fifth all-time.

All in all, it’s shaping up to be a pretty decent career for a guy some fans once hoped would be cut in favor of Jared Abbrederis.