FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — Davante Adams will be Aaron Rodgers' house guest for a while, at least until the New York Jets' newly acquired wide receiver gets situated.
So, they drove together to the team facility Wednesday morning. And then sat next to each other during the team meeting, just like old times.
“I turned to him and just said, ‘Man, how crazy is this?’” Rodgers said with a big grin. "It's something that when we get together in the offseasons, we joke about, but it never seemed like a possibility or going to happen.
“So it’s good to be with him.”
The two longtime Green Bay Packers teammates will also be back together on the football field in Pittsburgh on Sunday night, when Adams expects to make his Jets debut and catch passes again from his pal.
“Definitely, I'll be able to roll,” Adams said.
The star wide receiver, acquired from Las Vegas on Tuesday, was limited during the team's walkthrough session. Adams missed the Raiders' past three games with a hamstring injury that coincided with his request to be traded.
After a whirlwind 48 hours and months of speculation, he was back with Rodgers and in his familiar No. 17 jersey — this time in green and white.
“It's been a roller coaster, for sure,” Adams said. "It's a weird thing to say that I'm happy, but obviously, it was time for a change. And this whole thing kind of transpired a little weird, but at the end of the day, we're in a better place.
“I think the Raiders are in a better place, as well. And everyone can kind of move on. But it's definitely been a roller coaster — a little bit up and down and left and right here and there. But we ultimately got it done."
The 31-year-old Adams caught 103 passes last season for 1,144 yards and eight touchdowns for the Raiders, his second season in Las Vegas after eight with Rodgers in Green Bay.
He had 18 receptions for 209 yards and a touchdown in three games with Las Vegas this season before the hamstring injury — and subsequent trade request. Adams acknowledged he was frustrated and needed a change.
When asked about what he meant by both sides being better off, Adams said “let me choose my words carefully here” and talked about a difference in opinion of how he was being used, some of the offensive plans and how defenses were defending him.
“Just because they want to line up with the safety and try to play cover-2, we don’t just shut it down and move on,” Adams said. "Sometimes you've got to find a way to still make the play work because if you’re just looking for single coverage in order for me to make a play, I won’t be able to make many plays over the course of a year, just based on how I’m being played by a lot of these defenses.
“I think some of it is: Get me to a place where I’ve got a lot of familiarity with this offense and the quarterback. (Rodgers) understands how I see the game and how I see the ball thrown and all those things and sometimes he can make it easier.”
Adams and Rodgers will immediately renew their on-field connection, which was one of the greatest quarterback-wide receivers in recent NFL history. Adams caught 615 passes from Rodgers for 7,517 yards and 68 touchdowns during eight seasons together in Green Bay. That’s the most in all three categories between any combination of active players.
He'll join a suddenly crowded Jets wide receivers group that includes Garrett Wilson, who leads New York with 41 receptions, Allen Lazard, Mike Williams, Xavier Gipson, Irvin Charles and rookie Malachi Corley. There are some questions as to how new offensive play caller Todd Downing will be able to find roles for everyone while also integrating Adams into the system.
“It's a really cool problem to have,” interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich said. “It's going to give us an opportunity to have more flexibility where we move these guys around."
Williams, a free agent signing last offseason, has been slow to develop a rapport with Rodgers. He was the intended receiver when Rodgers threw interceptions on the Jets' last offensive series in losses to Buffalo and Minnesota. Rodgers said Williams was in the wrong spot on the throw that was picked off by Taron Johnson on Monday night.
Adams' arrival, in particular, clouds Williams' role in the offense. Williams was not at the team's walkthrough Wednesday for what the team listed on the injury report as “personal” reasons.
Meanwhile, ESPN reported Adams restructured his contract to lower his salary cap this season and two voidable years were added, so the sides can negotiate moving forward. His salary cap hit would be $44.1 million in each of the next two seasons.
Adams made it clear he's looking at the Jets as a long-term destination.
“I mean, I hope so,” he said. “That's the plan. I mean, I want to be here. I never go somewhere in hopes of having to find a new home.”
Rodgers sat out the walkthrough while resting his banged-up left ankle. The 40-year-old quarterback was limited during the team's first two practices last week before fully participating last Saturday. Ulbrich said Rodgers should practice Thursday and be fine to play Sunday.
Cornerbacks D.J. Reed (groin) and Michael Carter II (back) also didn't practice and could miss the game.
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New York Jets wide receiver Davante Adams speaks to reporters at the team's facility in Florham Park, N.J., on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Dennis Waszak Jr.)
New York Jets wide receiver Davante Adams speaks to reporters at the team's facility in Florham Park, N.J., on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Dennis Waszak Jr.)
WASHINGTON CROSSING, Pa. (AP) — Surrounded by more than 100 former Republican office holders and officials, Democrat Kamala Harris urged GOP voters on Wednesday to put “country first” and abandon Donald Trump.
The Democratic presidential candidate made her case to Republican voters that the patriotic choice was her party in next month's election because Trump is “unstable” and “unhinged" and would eviscerate democratic norms if given a second White House term.
“America must heed this warning," said Harris, speaking at a rally near where Gen. George Washington led hundreds of troops across Delaware River to a major victory in the Revolutionary War.
Joined by the former lawmakers and government officials for a rally in the Philadelphia suburbs, Harris said, “Anyone who tramples on our democratic values as Donald Trump has, anyone who has called for the ‘termination’ of the Constitution of the United States as Donald Trump has, must never again stand behind the seal of the president of the United States."
The rally was part of Harris' effort to appeal to a swath of Republican voters in battleground states that she believes still can be swayed.
With 20 days to go, Harris is hoping to tear away any Republican or on-the-fence voter by warning that Trump is looking to govern with “unchecked power.” She has pledged to nominate a Republican to her Cabinet and create a bipartisan council to advise her on policy matters if elected.
Meanwhile, Trump addressed Latino voters in Miami, Florida. It's a group that historically has leaned Democratic but that Republicans have made inroads with.
Trump is walking a tightrope as he looks to woo Latino voters.
On Wednesday, he defended his call for mass deportation of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, even as he nodded to a need for immigrant labor during a town hall-style event on Univision, the nation's largest Spanish-language network.
“We want workers, and we want them to come in, but they have to come in legally, and they have to love our country,” the Republican presidential candidate said during the event, scheduled to air Wednesday evening. Trump was answering the question of Jorge Velásquez, a farm worker who said most people doing such jobs are undocumented and suggested, if they're deported, food prices will increase.
Trump then returned to his criticism of Harris for being a critical player in the Biden administration's that presided over an influx of migrants with criminal backgrounds.
The event featured pointed questions for Trump, about his wife Melania's support for abortion rights, noted in her new memoir, and about the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the U.S. Capitol by his supporters who breached the building in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results.
“Your own vice president doesn’t want to support you now," said Ramiro Gonzalez, of Tampa, Florida, a Republican who said he was no longer registered with the party but wanted to give Trump the chance to win him back. Gonzalez was referring to former Vice President Mike Pence, who has disavowed Trump in light of Jan. 6.
Trump's response: “Hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington. They didn’t come because of me. They came because of the election. They thought the election was a rigged election. That’s why they came."
“That was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions," Trump told Gonzalez.
Harris was in Bucks County, a vote-rich stretch of suburban Philadelphia where Democrats have held a narrow advantage in recent presidential elections. Her advisers believe she needs to improve her margins in Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs to win the state's 19 electoral votes.
Harris was joined for her rally by former Reps. Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Jim Greenwood of Pennsylvania, Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois as well as Republican officials from every administration going back to Ronald Reagan.
“No matter your party, no matter who you voted for last time, there is a place for you in this campaign,” Harris said. “The coalition we have built has room for everyone who is ready to turn the page on the chaos and instability of Donald Trump.”
Several of the GOP surrogates said that supporting a Democrat felt awkward but was necessary due to Trump's rejection of electoral norms and his support of the rioters who tried to stop the certification of his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
“You know, Donald Trump may be running as a Republican, but the truth is, he does not share those long held Republican values of supporting democracy, of standing for the rule of law, and a faithfulness to the Constitution as a Republican," Kinzinger said. “That saddens me.”
Harris tapped a couple, Pennsylvania farmers Bob and Kristina Lange who had previously backed Trump, to introduce her at the rally. Bob twice voted for Trump and Kristina backed him in 2016.
“Never in a million years did either of us think that we’d be standing here supporting a Democrat,” Kristina Lange said. “But we’ve had enough. We’ve had enough.”
Some of the rallygoers who have voted Republican in the past said they were looking for the party to rewind to its fiscal conservative roots.
“We need more Republicans to stand up and say, ‘This is not what our party is about, this is not what we are about,’” said Sarah Larson, 53, of East Rockhill Township, who last voted for a Republican presidential candidate in 2008 when John McCain was at the top of the ticket. “It’s not what we recognize anymore as Republican values - which is less government, more freedom - right now."
Trump and Harris also campaigned in Pennsylvania Monday, when the Republican was in nearby Oaks while Harris was on the opposite end of the state in Erie County, among Pennsylvania's most closely divided counties over the past two presidential contests.
Harris' simplest path toward the 270-vote winning threshold in the Electoral College is by carrying a trio of northern battleground states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris campaigned in Detroit Tuesday and planned to campaign in three Wisconsin cities Thursday.
Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Maryclaire Dale in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, contributed reporting.
FILE - In this combination image, Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks during a debate, Oct. 7, 2020, in Salt Lake City, left, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a debate, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/File)
