Davante Adams is Las Vegas’ newest superstar, but this season won’t be the first time he wears the Raiders’ famous silver and black. Far from it.
He grew up a Raiders fan in the Bay Area, but furthermore, Adams would wear a Raiders shirt while still a member of the Packers — at least during offseason workouts with quarterback Derek Carr.
Carr and Adams starred in college together at Fresno State and remained friends as professionals. When they got together to play basketball over the summer, Adams’ shirt gave Carr hope that someday, Adams would join him on the Raiders, which he finally did when Las Vegas acquired him in late March.
Here are the details courtesy of ESPN’s Tim Keown, who wrote an in-depth piece on Adams.
As professionals, after both were taken in the second round of the 2014 NFL draft, Adams and Carr lived near each other in the San Francisco Bay Area during the offseason and worked out together.
“He had this Raiders shirt he would wear when we would go hoop,” Carr says. “I never made a big deal of it because I was just hoping he was speaking it into existence. And here we are.”
Carr managed to play it cool, but seeing Adams’ shirt understandably planted a seed in his mind that one day, they’d be reunited as Raiders.
While it once seemed impossible that Adams would leave the Packers, a perennial contender with all-world QB Aaron Rodgers, to join the Raiders, looking back with the help of hindsight, it may have been inevitable.
Adams grew up a Raiders fan; his family is from the west coast; his friendship with Carr runs deep. And when the franchise moved to a new stadium in fabulous Las Vegas, the allure naturally increased.
Plus, Adams apparently never stopped loving the Raiders on some level.
It’s an incredible story, but Carr and Adams would likely say it doesn’t mean much without results on the field. The journey starts on Sunday against the Chargers when Adams will make his Raiders debut. And this time, his Raiders gear will be official and for all the world to see.
