Former NFL GM: Davante Adams’ Jets speech is ‘sad commentary on team’ | News, scores, highlights, stats and rumours

Davante Adams is a veteran wide receiver who saw an opportunity to provide leadership for his new team after a Week 7 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, but some around the league believe that said more about the New York Jets than anything else.

“It’s a sad commentary on the team, that someone on the outside has to tell them what they’re doing wrong,” a former NFC general manager said in an ESPN story Thursday. Rich Cimini.

A Jets player smiled and offered “no comment” when asked how he felt when a new teammate called the team after a loss in its first game.

New York traded for Adams before that contest, which ended in a convincing 37-15 victory for the Steelers.

Cimini explained that the wide receiver’s postgame speech “drew admiration” from quarterback Aaron Rodgers and interim coach Jeff Ulbrich, who even “used it as a rallying cry leading up to the game against New England.”

According to Cimini, “Adams sensed an alarming ‘lack of energy and urgency’ on the field in Pittsburgh and felt compelled to address it immediately after the game, even though he had only been on the team for a few days.”

That seeming lack of urgency from the Jets echoes the general manager’s comments, and the results didn’t change the next game. The New England Patriots stunned Rodgers and Co. with a 25-22 victory that dropped New York’s record to 2-6.

This is a team that should be in a win-now window with the 40-year-old Rodgers under center, surrounded by weapons without a shortage in Adams, Garrett Wilson, Breece Hall and others.

Instead, the Jets are in last place in the AFC East at 2-6 and will need a quick turnaround if they are going to be factors in the playoff race.

Perhaps that comeback will start Thursday against a Houston Texans team that will be without wide receivers Nico Collins and Stefon Diggs.

If not, it will take a lot more than a speech from Adams to save the Jets’ season.