The mistake of comparing DK Metcalf to Davante Adams
Just because it feels good, doesn't make it right: Seaside Joe 1699
By all means, I hope that DK Metcalf becomes the next Davante Adams (and stays on the Seattle Seahawks if he does), but it is time for someone to put an end to the same comparison that gets used every single year with a different player propped as “compared to Davante Adams” depending on where he is at in his own career as a method to have unearned optimism.
100 players in NFL history have had more receiving yards than Davante Adams through their first five seasons, it’s time to mature and stop using this comparison.
Adams isn’t known for getting off to a hot start, he’s known for “coming out of nowhere” to become the receiver that same call the best in the NFL. Therefore, the constant comparisons people make between the receiver they like and Adams is misleading because they’re comparing that player to when Adams was good instead of when Adams has been elite and making it seem as though one of the most exceptional mid-career breakouts in league history is inevitable just because the early season stats are similar.
I would know because I’ve been guilty of the Davante Adams comparison many times before and so I owe a debt to society to help make it stop.
I know that sometimes I write articles like this one and it’s like, “Man, do you even WANT Seahawks fans to be subscribed to Seaside Joe?” (Yes)
But this is more of a general NFL rant against something that is so prevelant and so stupid that I need to try and put an end to it when it reaches a Seahawks community so that we can nip it in the bud before it comes around again…and it will keep coming around, but at least at Seaside Joe we’ve now addressed it once: “OUR GUY has as many yards as THAT GUY so therefore they’re the same does not equal a valid comparison or projection and is a false equivalancy guaranteed to end in your disappointment with OUR GUY.”
Let’s stop doing it.
This is a tweet by something called Sports On Tap Seattle that has been viewed over 70,000 times and mostly because I used to be exactly like this person and shared the same type of flawed information, I now have to call it out. I had to cut off the top of the tweet for page size purposes, but it starts “It’s actually nuts how many people hate on DK Metcalf, especially Seahawks fans…. HE IS 25 & he is an elite WR. Whether you like it or not it is true.”
Okay, we’re going to debunk all of those statements too, except for him being 25 as that is the only thing here that is not misleading. (I guess you could say it is still a little misleading because Metcalf turns 26 in December.)
Davante Adams
Here are the first five seasons of Adams’ career:
When Adams was a rookie on the Packers, Green Bay had two Pro Bowl receivers (Jordy Nelson had over 1,500 yards, Randall Cobb had almost 1,300 yards) and yet he still made an impact as a second round pick trying to get the attention of Aaron Rodgers. So much so that in a playoff win over the Cowboys that year, he led the team with 117 yards and a touchdown on seven catches.
In the 2015 offseason, Adams was so impressive that he won the team’s “offseason MVP” award and was expected to have a breakout, especially after Nelson tore his ACL in the preseason, but an ankle injury in Week 2 cost Adams three games and he was never right when he returned. Adams said he “wasn’t proud” of the season he had regardless of hurting both his ankle and his knee that year.
Adams’ determination to become great paid off in year three and he set career-highs with 13 catches, 132 yards, and 2 TDs in a Week 7 win over the Bears. If he wasn’t going to lead the NFL in yards quite yet, he still tied for second in touchdowns (Jordy Nelson was first, so if not for him, Adams might have scored 20) in 2016, then he ranked second again in 2017. If not for missing two games with injury, Adams may have had his first career 1,000-yard campaign, one season after he had 997.
More over, Rodgers missed nine games in 2017 and that probably also cost Adams the chance to be perceived elite as Brett Hundley was Green Bay’s starter for more than half of the season.
Context matters.
In 2018, Nelson went to the Raiders and Cobb missed seven games (and was on the down side of his career) so Rodgers decided “I’m gonna throw it to my best receiver all the time now”. Adams had 169 targets, second-most in the NFL behind the 170 of Julio Jones, and Adams even missed one game.
It was only now that we could say, “Okay, maybe Davante Adams is elite” but I don’t think he was playing significantly better during his breakout season than he had in the two campaigns before it: His targets per game simply went up from 8.35 to 11.26.
He was asked to be the number one (and often only) target of the quarterback who won back-to-back MVPs and so from 2018 to 2021, Adams averaged 153 targets, 108 catches, 1,327 yards, and 12 touchdowns per season, as well as 93.2 yards per game, 8.6 yards per target, and a 70.4% catch rate.
When Adams was traded to the Raiders in 2022, he still had 100 catches for 1,516 yards and 14 touchdowns. However, his catch rate plummeted from 72.8% to 55.6% and really what happened is that Derek Carr targeted him 180 times and made sure his best friend would never go hungry. This isn’t to devalue Adams’ accomplishments—he led the NFL in touchdowns despite playing for the Raiders!—it’s just true.
If Davante Adams played for the Seahawks, he would never get 1,500 yards.
And this could be a point in DK’s favor, right? We’ll get to him next, but certainly DK could argue that in a different offense with a different quarterback, he would have had way more than 1,048 yards and six touchdowns last season. With the potential emergence of Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Jake Bobo, has Metcalf maxed out volume potential with Seattle?
But none of this addresses the most important point of all when comparing DK Metcalf to Davante Adams which is simply…
THEY’RE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TYPES OF RECEIVERS!
According to former Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon in a post for The 33rd Team, Adams strengths include being so consistent (play to play), that he has a plan for every snap, he is obsessive about getting better and being prepared (Josh McDaniels called him the best listener he’s ever been around), he does deep dives on every cornerback and defense he faces, he is elite with how he uses his hands at the line of scrimmage, and he’s first guy in/last guy out for practices and meetings.
At different times, Adams has been called the NFL’s best route runner, in addition to being the most versatile. In 2021, he was the only receiver in the league to be top-15 in targets from all three base receiver positions:
You can see where DK Metcalf lines up and that’s pretty much where you will find him. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that either: Cooper Kupp was the most-targeted slot receiver in 2021 and he led the NFL in catches, yards, and touchdowns en route to winning Offensive Player of the Year. That’s what he is in the Rams offense, a slot receiver, and a dominant one.
I’m just making the point that to put “first five years” side by side and to pretend like that is a valuable comparison as far as predicting what’s to come for Metcalf, that is misleading, misguided, and lacking necessary context.
We think of Adams as a Hall of Fame receiver now, but his Packers teammates saw that he was going to be elite from the very beginning:
Said Jordy Nelson of Adams a few years ago: “His playmaking ability and the way he can create separation is something that’s very rare.”
Said James Jones: “With Davante, you can’t say (that he has a weak point).”
Jones mentioned that while someone like DeAndre Hopkins is not good at releasing at the line of scrimmage, Adams is “phenomenal”’; That Adams’ yards after catch is “phenomenal”; That his route running is “phenomenal”; And his ability to go up and make a tough catch is, yes, “phenomenal”.
Despite Adams not having eye-popping stats his first two years in the league, Randall Cobb said that “we knew he had something special from the day he walked into the building”.
Davante Adams is an example of a receiver who consistently got better year after year. The fact that he was stagnant in year two, that may have only motivated him more to become the NFL’s best receiver, which is also not anything like how DK Metcalf’s career has gone; by almost any measure, Metcalf’s best season came three years ago.
When you use words to describe DK’s strengths as a football player, do you say he’s “consistent”, “NFL’s best route runner”, “elite release”, “phenomenal hands”, “creates separation”, “tough catches”? Or do you say none of those things? Metcalf had the 5th-worst yards of separation and 8th-worst YAC/catch in the NFL in 2022.
DK Metcalf has advantages over Adams too, but in no way are their strengths and weaknesses comparable. This is all setting aside the fact that DK Metcalf is 6’3, 228 lbs, and ran a 4.33 in the 40-yard dash, whereas Adams is 6’1, 212, and ran a 4.56. Conventional wisdom says “bigger and faster means better” but sometimes players become craftier and work harder because they weren’t given those genetic advantages.
I mean, if you wanted to make an outrageous Hall of Fame projection for Metcalf, you’d be smarter to do it with Calvin Johnson.
Adams isn’t fast, but he isn’t slow and he manages to create more separation than most players. He manages to find ways to get open, gain more yards after the catch, and score more often, which is the only reason you’d care if a player was big and fast anyway. Megatron has proven that you can kind of be a one-dimensional receiver and still be considered the best among your peers.
And Metcalf does have similar stats to Johnson through four years too. The main difference between the two for me being that Matthew Stafford trusted he could throw the ball to Johnson and that he would come down with the catch. I don’t think of Metcalf as that guy yet. It felt like there was more trust from Geno Smith on his touchdown throw to Jake Bobo last week than on any red zone pass to Metcalf all season.
Case in point: Metcalf has 6 red zone targets this season, which is only 2 more red zone targets than JSN, Colby Parkinson, and Bobo each have this year. For the biggest, fastest, strongest receiver on the team, does that seem counter-intuitive?
Going back to Adams, in his fifth year he had 24 red zone targets and caught 12 touchdowns. Last season, Metcalf caught only 8 of 27 red zone targets and scored 5 touchdowns. This year, he’s caught 5-of-6 for 2 touchdowns. Since Geno took over, that’s a total of 13 catches on 33 red zone targets for 7 touchdowns.
In his last season with Russell Wilson, Metcalf caught 9 touchdowns on 19 red zone opportunities. Does it mean something? I’ll let you decide, but we still need to stop using Adams as a comparison.
Davante Adams vs. 100
As I said in the beginning, Davante Adams ranks 101st all time in career receiving yards through five seasons: 4,197 yards over 74 games.
This means that he had fewer receiving yards through five seasons than players like Torrey Smith, Mark Andrews, Braylon Edwards, Alshon Jeffery, Santonio Holmes, Chris Chambers, David Boston, Hakeem Nicks, Laveraneus Coles, and Jimmy Graham…and those are just examples from this century.
Darrell Jackson had 5,007 yards through five seasons, over 800 more than Davante Adams. So why don’t we compare Metcalf to Jackson?
Simple answer: Because that wouldn’t be flattering.
Jackson averaged over 1,000 yards per season in his first five years, but then only 531 yards per season in the next four and then he retired.
Michael Thomas AVERAGED 1,378 yards per season in his first four years. He has a TOTAL of 980 yards in the most recent four years.
“But Michael Thomas missed a lot of time!” Yeah…that happens to a lot of football players.
These false equivalencies are not helpful to anyone and they set unrealistic expectations of what certain players are supposed to be so long as they match the career arc of one of the greatest receivers of all-time. If you think that Metcalf is on track to be the next Adams because he’s 25 (almost 26) and has more yards than him through five seasons, you’re setting yourself up to be disappointed with Metcalf 99 times out of 100.
Why set yourself up for disappointment? That reminds me of the time that I saw The Conjuring because it had a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes after it’s first week in theaters. I mean, The Conjuring is…fine. But I guarantee that my perception of it would be a lot more positive if I didn’t go in thinking that it would be the next The Sixth Sense or The Exorcist.
So I don’t look at Rotten Tomatoes anymore.
Davante Adams last 5 years
People love to use Adams’ first five years as an example of why their favorite receiver is destined for greatness, but far less common is mentioning just how elite Adams has been from the middle-to-latest part of his career. He is 101st in receiving yards for players year 1-5.
But what about years 5-9?
For a player in his 5th-9th season in the NFL, Davante Adams ranks sixth all-time in yards behind Julio Jones, Antonio Brown, Calvin Johnson, Marvin Harrison, and Jerry Rice. By yards per game (92.2) he ranks fifth. By touchdowns (61) he ranks fourth. By receptions (532) he ranks fourth.
In the most recent era, it’s basically him and Antonio Brown have the most dominant stretches between age 26-30.
Yet we have a lot of examples of players who were actually worse after turning 26, not better. I’m not saying all these players were “bad” after 26, but they didn’t become Davante Adams: A.J. Green, Michael Thomas, DeAndre Hopkins, T.Y. Hilton, Odell Beckham, Jr., Dez Bryant, Demaryius Thomas, Greg Jennings, Brandin Cooks, Marques Colston, Amari Cooper, Brandon Marshall, Jarvis Landry, Mike Wallace, Dwayne Bowe, Desean Jackson, Roddy White…
They all had significantly more yards than Metcalf and Adams through five seasons. None could hold a candle to what Adams did after turning 26.
So why compare a pre-26 receiver to Davante Adams whether they do or do not have the same skillset or warrant a comparison (which as shown, Metcalf doesn’t) to him?
BECAUSE IT’S FLATTERING! AND THOSE OTHER COMPS WOULDN’T BE!
DK Metcalf is not elite
“It’s actually nuts how many people hate on DK Metcalf, especially Seahawks fans…. HE IS 25 & he is an elite WR. Whether you like it or not it is true.”
There is such a deep-seated insecurity when it comes to fans who need earmuffs any time someone says that one of the players on the team might be flawed or not as good as the most ideal perception of that player. If I say that DK Metcalf is not as good or probably won’t ever be as good as Davante Adams, does that mean that I “hate” on him?
Or is it just a pretty defensible opinion and rarely an insult to say that a player is not likely to be as good as the #1 player at his position in the league for several years in a row?
‘Well, now you’re saying that Metcalf isn’t elite so NOW you’re a hater!”
Am I? Is it hating to say that the player ranked 48th in receiving yards this season and 22nd since the start of last season might not be “elite”?
How did we get to this point in which saying that DK Metcalf, might be, I don’t know, the 18th-best receiver in the NFL is somehow dramatically selling him short? What games/season did I miss in which Metcalf has proven that he’s one of the absolute best receivers in the league? I must have tuned out.
I’ve said this before and I do think it is a valid argument, which is that if Metcalf was 6’0, 200 lbs, and ran a 4.45, people wouldn’t put these ridiculously high expectations on him and would instead perceive him to be someone who is vastly outplaying his status as a late second round pick instead of as a player who should have gone in the top-10 because he had a fantastic combine.
Metcalf “fell in the draft” so therefore when he had two really productive seasons to start his career, it validated everyone who said he should have been an early first round pick and now we think of him as that instead of someone who wasn’t very productive in college and did have a lot of things he should improve upon.
So when I say that Metcalf is a borderline top-20 receiver I’m “hating” on him instead of “complimenting” him, which is what I think I’m doing. Top-20? THAT’S GREAT! But for Seattle Sports Tap and a lot of other people with this same mindset, it’s the biggest insult in Seahawks history to say that Metcalf is not elite.
What is Elite?
How far are we supposed to stretch this word out? Top-5? Top-10? Top-15?
The top-five receivers in yards (I’m just using yards as a baseline for pulling in some names, don’t yell at me for using yards to measure quality of a player) since the start of 2022 are Tyreek Hill, Justin Jefferson, A.J. Brown, Stefon Diggs, and Adams.
Which of those five players is Metcalf better than?
The next five, not including Travis Kelce (6th), are CeeDee Lamb, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jaylen Waddle, Mike Evans, and Terry McLaurin. The next five are Ja’Marr Chase, Christian Kirk, DeVonta Smith, Amari Cooper, and Brandon Aiyuk. The next five are D.J. Moore, Chris Olave, Chris Godwin, Garrett Wilson, and Michael Pittman.
Then comes Metcalf.
Now I do think that Metcalf is interchangeable with a lot of those names, but does it make someone “elite” to say that they could potentially fall anywhere from 9th to 18th in the order? You can argue that Metcalf is only 72nd in receptions and 48th in yards because he’s playing in 5 games whereas many others have played in 7 games, but shouldn’t the burden of proof be on those who say that he’s “undeniably elite” instead of on fans who would merely ask for the evidence?
I think I like DK Metcalf as much as the next fan, honestly, and yet I would still say that the case for Brandon Aiyuk or CeeDee Lamb or Terry McLaurin is at least slightly easier right now. The penalties get the headlines, and understandably so (Metcalf has twice as many 15-yard penalties in his 5-year career as Adams has in a 10-year career), but kind of distract from the more important point, which is that Metcalf isn’t this “Shaquille O’Neal of Football” who takes over games because of his physical advantages.
Who among us believes that when the Seahawks desperately need to hit the “Go Button” to their best player that they target Metcalf? Since 2022, Metcalf has three games over 90 yards, which is fewer than 33 other players including Puka Nacua, a fifth round rookie on the Rams. I don’t think Puka is better than DK, but I do think that the receivers we consider “elite” would have more performances that we consider “dominant” than that.
That’s not “hating” on a player. It’s coming out of The Conjuring and going, “Oh I think that was more of a 70% movie than a 100% movie” which is still a fresh movie!
“What was the point of this? To make me hate Seaside Joe?”
I hope not!
If anything, the takeaway should be that I think DK Metcalf is a very good receiver and that saying he’s “very good” is not being a hater. The fact that only four receivers in the entire league make more money per season than Metcalf (Hill, Adams, Kupp, Brown) is also something worth monitoring: Metcalf’s cap hit is $29.5 million in 2025, which is almost as much as what Seattle is set to pay Geno Smith in the next two seasons.
That’s a lot for a player who still needs to show improvement and that we can’t just assume he’s going to get better because “Davante Adams exists”. By looking at the context around Adams’ career, we can better explain why he didn’t have as much production in his first 2-4 seasons as what would come next and I honestly find few parrallels to be made between him and Metcalf.
As much as any other Seahawks fan, I would love to see those improvements happen.
But football doesn’t care about what we want to happen…no matter how many times we try to tweet it into existence.
Not off-topic, but tangential...Todd Vandenberg had a good writeup at 12th Man Rising today re. DK's penalty problem. It also includes several SSJ-esque elements - comparison with stats for a couple of familiar faces, along with acknowledgment of (and praise for) an author with a competing view.
I choose to believe that this means Kenneth is singlehandedly raising the bar for quality in Seahawks writing. Way to go, Seaside Joe! 😉👍
https://12thmanrising.com/posts/seahawks-dk-metcalf-being-played-he-doesnt-know
I just think DK’s view of himself gets in the way of evolving as much as he could. Perhaps he doesn’t get that his physical gifts will erode, and if that is his total game, he’ll be out of the league well before he should be. I like him in many ways, but I’d love to work with him on the mental side of his development. People need to stop telling him how special he is, and start telling him he could be so much more than what he has become.