the most touchdown-dependent WR we cover, aging, with no yardage floor. A clean fade.
Davante Adams 2026 Season Preview — fourteen touchdowns at thirty-three
Show notes & transcript▾
Davante Adams scored fourteen touchdowns last year on a profile that gave him no yardage floor — and he turns thirty-three this season. That's the most touchdown-dependent receiver in this entire range, aging, at a price that assumes the scoring repeats. The Muffed 2026 preview on a clean fade.
The season looked strong on the surface: WR9, fifteen-nine a game, fourteen touchdowns. But the texture is alarming. Sixty catches, seven hundred eighty-nine yards — and the scores came on one-, two-, four-, seven-, and ten-yard routes. He was the clear number two behind Puka Nacua, riding Matthew Stafford's league-leading forty-six touchdown passes. Strip the touchdowns and the line is a complementary receiver with no floor: a stretch of games at nine, seven-nine, seven-one, six-nine.
The arc is a future Hall of Famer easing down: fifteen-six, seventeen-two, fifteen-nine — productive, but increasingly propped up by touchdown volume as the yardage softened.
Here's the call, and it's the cleanest in the batch. His touchdown share is thirty-seven-point-seven percent — the highest of any receiver we cover, far into the quartile our fade rule docks by nearly two points a game. Fourteen touchdowns on sixty catches is a rate that does not repeat. And he turns thirty-three this season, deep into a receiver's decline band after more than a decade in the league. There is no volume floor to catch him when the touchdowns regress — and they will.
The situation doesn't rescue it, per the reports: the Rams considered trading him, are moving forward for now, but flagged receiver as a draft need amid the uncertainty, and he's embracing a mentor role for Nacua. A thirty-three-year-old number-two receiver whose value is fourteen touchdowns is the textbook regression candidate.
The price: pick forty-nine, the twenty-third receiver. Verdict: CALL — overpriced. Maximum touchdown dependence plus advanced age plus no yardage floor, at a price that needs the touchdowns to repeat. The counter, fairly: Stafford is elite and Adams is a savvy route-runner who's beaten the clock before — but fourteen touchdowns at thirty-three on sixty catches is the bet we won't make.
September watch: the touchdown rate, the entire call; and the target share with a healthy Nacua, where the number-two role caps the volume. Your guys, every week. Next preview's queued.
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2025: 60 catches for 789 yards, 14 TDs on 114 targets (14 games)
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2025 ReviewMay 11, 2026Davante Adams 2025 Season in Review
WR9 on the season — 14 games, 15.9 PPR/game
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Davante Adams 2025 Season in Review
WR9 on the season — 14 games, 15.9 PPR/game
Show notes & transcript
Davante Adams finished 2025 as the number 9 wide receiver in total points per reception scoring — and the number 9 wide receiver in points per reception per game. Same rank, two different lenses. That tells you everything: Adams didn't pile up empty volume, and he didn't miss enough time to torpedo his total. He landed in the same neighborhood whether you measured the whole pie or sliced it per appearance. In his first full year catching passes from Matthew Stafford, Adams settled into a role as the touchdown-scoring complement to Puka Nacua's volume monster in a Rams offense that finished second in the league in total offensive expected points added at plus 152.9. Efficient, opportunistic, and tethered to a passing attack that ranked second in the league in passing expected points added at plus 137.9.
Now let's dig into the numbers, because the touchdowns are the whole story. Adams averaged 15.9 points per reception per game across 14 games — 222.9 total. He was the clear secondary option: Nacua ran away with the targets, catching 129 balls for 1,715 yards. Adams still cleared the top ten because Stafford led the league with 46 passing touchdowns, and Adams was the guy Stafford hunted when the field shrunk. The Rams scored a touchdown on 68.5 percent of red zone trips, sixth-best in football, and ended 75.3 percent of their scoring drives in the end zone — second in the league. Adams cashed in. But the week-to-week profile was boom over steady: three games above 22 points per reception, offset by a 9.1, a 7.9, a 7.1, a 6.9, and an 11.1. Roughly a third of his appearances came in under 12. When the touchdowns hit, he smashed. When they didn't, the yardage floor wasn't there to save him — the trade-off baked into being a touchdown-dependent number-two option on a high-scoring offense.
The play that captures the season isn't the longest — it's the red zone design in miniature. Second quarter against Indianapolis in Week 4: second and 10 from the 10-yard line, 11 seconds left in the half, Rams trailing 10 to 6. Stafford goes shotgun, finds Adams on a short throw to the left, 10-yard touchdown, nearly four expected points added. That's the Adams role in one snap — Stafford trusts him inside the 20, the ball gets there, six points. Adams scored on a 1-yard route, a 2-yard route, a 4-yard route, a 7-yard route, and a 10-yard route this year. The touchdowns weren't accidents. They were the design. That's how a secondary receiver finishes as the number 9 wide receiver without leading his own team in catches or yards.
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