Through the Receiver's Eyes: Davante Adams

Breaking Down Adams' 16-Yard TD Reception vs. the Titans

The Rams have Super Bowl aspirations. The Titans picked 1st in the NFL Draft this offseason. So it was a surprise to see Tennessee hanging around and still within 4 points of the Rams with about 10 minutes remaining in the game on Sunday.

Receive breakdowns like this directly in your inbox by subscribing here:

But L.A. had just forced a turnover and now faced a 3rd-and-5 at Tennessee’s 16-yard line. They needed to create some distance between themselves and the Titans.

Tennessee was desperate to get a stop and keep this a one-possession game. So they got aggressive. According to Matthew Stafford, they were bringing a “0-Pressure, all-out blitz.”

That wasn’t clear initially as Tennessee started in a 2-deep look. But motion by Puka Nacua across the formation dropped a safety down and made it an easier picture for Stafford to decipher post snap:

Davante Adams saw the coverage and was licking his chops:

“I got […] singled up, a little man coverage there and had a great playcall on, and just had to […] go out there and win on a stutter-ish-go type […] route.”

Adams continued:

“[I] buckled him a little bit on the route with a little ‘haah’ and then got over the top and finished in the end zone.”

You can see that little “haah” he was referring to on his route below:

Stafford then delivered a great ball into the back of the end zone:

What helped the Rams complete this play, according to head coach Sean McVay, was Adams’ “good late hands.”

“Late hands” basically means that the receiver doesn’t put his hands up to catch the ball until the last possible moment. That’s critical because when defensive backs have their eyes on the receiver and don’t have the time or ability to look back for the ball, they’re taught to read the receiver. Once they see his hands go up or body language indicate that the ball is near, they play through their hands to try and knock the ball away.

Here, cornerback L’Jarius Sneed didn’t have that opportunity because Adams didn’t give it to him. Look how late he put his hands up to reel this pass in:

The ball was securely in Adams’ mitts by the time Sneed got a hand on him.

For Stafford’s part, he said afterwards that once he saw the cover-0 blitz, he tried to “hang in there as long as [he] could.”

A couple things to point out about this aspect of the play. First, that was a great job by running back Kyren Williams of picking up this blitz.

It looked like the protection was set up to slide to the offense’s left to account for 3 down-linemen and linebacker Cedric Gray (#33), with the right tackle responsible for the edge rusher over him:

That left Williams with a dual read from linebacker Cody Barton (#50) to slot corner Roger McCreary (#21):

When Barton didn’t rush, Williams glanced over at McCreary and did a great job of quickly meeting him far enough away from Stafford:

That’s also a great job by Stafford of deciphering the defense and understanding that based on the protection, the free rusher in his face would be picked up at the last moment. That’s not an easy thing to do at all, and yet there was no panic in his motion:

This was the first of many Stafford-to-Adams touchdown passes we’re likely to see in 2025.