Davante Adams Still Belongs in the Fantasy Football WR2 Mix

Davante Adams is no longer the target-dominating fantasy cheat code he was during his prime, but he is also not ready to drift into fantasy irrelevance. In his first season with the Rams, Adams immediately returned to a boundary-heavy role, led the league in receiving touchdowns, and finished as a top-10 wide receiver in half-PPR points per game. The problem is that both Adams and Matthew Stafford are coming off touchdown seasons that will be difficult to repeat, making his 2026 profile less about chasing another WR1 finish and more about buying a still-dangerous scorer in one of the NFL’s best offenses.

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Davante Adams’ Career

It’s been a long and winding road for Davante Adams, which has included multiple teams, several different roles, and a couple of future Hall of Fame quarterbacks. From a slow career start over a decade ago to leading the league in touchdown grabs in 2025 (and 2020, and 2022), Adams and his fantasy managers have seen it all through the years.

Despite several stops over the last handful of years, he hasn’t finished below fantasy’s WR17 since 2015 (!!), while wrapping up as a top-12 option in nine of the last ten.

*Out of roughly 90 WRs, depending on the year.

With the sheer amount of routes, hits, and miles run over an extended NFL lifespan, we always could have expected that Adams’ usage as a featured top-flight WR1 would have to come to an end at some point. But his brief foray into the Larry Fitzgerald aging pipeline was incredibly short-lived. Upon arriving with the Jets in the middle of the 2024 season, Adams saw a massive slot spike while Garrett Wilson remained the primary boundary option, easily setting a new career high with a 52.1% slot rate.

With Puka Nacua operating as arguably the league’s best chess piece, and the Rams’ heavy personnel usage, Adams returned to his natural home as a near-permanent X receiver when he landed in L.A. last season. And things went gloriously for fantasy purposes. While catching the fewest number of passes (60) since the 2015 season, Adams was simply deadly within the “green zone”, or inside the opponents’ 10-yard line, leading the league in targets (23), catches (11), and, most importantly, touchdowns (11). All this in only 14 games.

We shouldn’t expect a reversion back into an old-man-slot role in 2026 after the team had so much success sticking him on the boundary, so another moderate 22-24% target share output is likely on the horizon. That means we’re going to need the Rams offense to be running on all cylinders again if we’re going to see yet another top-12 performance out of our subject.

The Rams’ Offense in 2026

I’m sure anyone reading this is quite aware that the Rams offense has been quite prolific in recent history, and with minimal turnover on the roster or staff, we can expect more of the same ahead of this season. In Matthew Stafford’s MVP-winning 2025, the team ranked first in points per drive and second in yards per drive, while easily leading the league in raw fantasy points as a team.

While offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur has headed to Arizona to accept their head coaching vacancy, we now have Nate Scheelhaase, who has been on staff as a pass game specialist/pass game coordinator for the last two years, picking up the reins. We should expect the team to continue focusing on moving the ball through the air, and with both Nacua (1st) and Adams (4th) finishing in the top-five in terms of first downs per route run, it would be hard to argue against it.

Now it’s just a matter of worry about regression.

Projecting the Rams’ Pass-Catchers in Fantasy

And regression almost undoubtedly will come in one form or another.

Stafford threw 46 touchdowns last season on a 7.7% TD rate, but betting on him reaching those heights again will be a tall task. That number of scores bettered not only his previous two seasons combined but was also 12 more than his previous 17-game average. His career touchdown rate entering that MVP performance? 4.6%.

Adams himself is not in the clear after such an outlier season, either. According to Matt Okada’s look on wide receiver TD regression, Adams’ 23.3% catch:touchdown ratio was the highest he’s encountered since the 2007 Randy Moss/Patriots blow-up season. Additionally, more than a quarter of his 111 targets came within the red zone.

Those are two major red flags, but what is working in both Nacua and Adams’ favor is the fact that the team has absolutely no reason to bump either one down the target share tree. The Rams added sixth-rounder CJ Daniels to a room already featuring Jordan Addison, Xavier Smith, and Konata Mumpfield, but they did not make a meaningful investment in a target challenger. Their first three draft picks went to a backup quarterback, a fourth tight end, and a backup offensive tackle.

Nacua is still a locked-in, elite-tier WR1 option, and though Adams’ WR8 performance last year was incredible, his league-leading workload is well in the rearview mirror, and while he should remain a great touchdown threat, history tells us that his 2025 pace is going to be next to impossible to recreate. He is more of a viable low-end WR2 option in fantasy, with touchdown-driven spike weeks still very much in play.

Bottom Line

• Davante Adams is no longer the league-leading target hog he was at his peak, but his first season with the Rams proved he can still be a major fantasy factor in the right role. Los Angeles used him as a boundary receiver and green-zone weapon, and he rewarded them with another top-10 fantasy finish.
• The regression is almost assuredly coming. Matthew Stafford is unlikely to repeat a 46-touchdown MVP season, and Adams’ touchdown rate from inside the opponents’ 10-yard line will be extremely difficult to recreate. If the scoring dips, his lower reception total gives him less margin for error than he had during his peak fantasy seasons.
• According to 4for4’s Multi-Site ADP, Adams is coming off boards as the WR23 at the end of the fourth round. I wish I felt a stronger type of way about that valuation, but it’s honestly…fine. The Rams’ offensive environment, lack of meaningful target competition behind Puka Nacua, and Adams’ scoring-area role still make him very draftable, and assuming health for both himself and Stafford, it’s hard to see him slipping much further past that.