Cheese Curds, 7/22: Can Packers and Davante Adams agree on an extension?

Aside from Aaron Rodgers, there is one player whose contract status and questions dwarf any others on the Green Bay Packers’ roster. Davante Adams is, in the eyes of many who cover the NFL, the best wide receiver in the league. He is also grossly underpaid for a player viewed in such high regard, and he is going into the final year of a four-year contract extension he signed late in 2017.

Adams is scheduled to make just $13.25 million in 2021 with a salary cap hit of about $16.8 million. Although that is the third-highest cap number of any receiver for 2021, it puts him 16th in terms of actual compensation this year, albeit behind several players who signed new contracts — including a pair of rookie top-ten draft picks.

Still, the Packers do not have a single wide receiver who has NFL experience signed beyond 2021. Marquez Valdes-Scantling is scheduled to join Adams as an unrestricted free agent. Allen Lazard will be a restricted free agent. And although Amari Rodgers will be locked up for four years on his rookie contract, he has yet to take an NFL snap (and technically he has not even signed that first deal yet thanks to third-round draft pick negotiation oddities).

Thus, convincing Adams to return for 2022 is arguably the Packers’ biggest challenge. The team would surely love to sign him to an extension before the season, putting to bed that question as well as pushing out some of his cap money into future years, when the salary cap will rebound.

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