Analysis: Raider-Adams disconnect still evident in loss to Bears

By Case Keefer (contact)

Monday, Oct. 23, 2023 | 2 a.m.

Davante Adams had five catches in the Raiders’ first two drives Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field, and then only two more for the rest of the game.

Las Vegas made a concerted effort to feature Adams, the superstar receiver who’s been disgruntled with his dwindling role in the offense, early with several scripted plays according to fill-in starting quarterback Brian Hoyer. Then the game plan shifted away from him and the type of anemic offensive performance Adams had warned about persisted.

Las Vegas only scored one touchdown, in the final minutes long after the game’s outcome had been decided, as part of a humiliating 30-12 loss to a Chicago team led by undrafted rookie free agent quarterback Tyson Bagent.

“Nothing changed the whole time,” an unusually reserved Adams said afterwards in the locker room of the way the Bears defended him. “It was the same coverage basically.”

Raiders coach Josh McDaniels had a much different answer when asked why Adams was held to another statistics line beneath his standard, seven receptions for 57 yards.

“It just so happened that there were a handful of things early in the game that we had opportunities to go ahead and get it to him and they played defenses that didn’t double-team him and all the rest of it, take him away,” McDaniels said. “We moved him around some. Give those two credit — the quarterback and ‘Tae. They got off to a decent start, and then (the Bears) started to do some things with coverage.”

Adams caught back-to-back passes from Hoyer, for 14 and five yards, with around two minutes remaining in the first quarter and then didn’t have a target until the end of the third quarter. He didn’t record a catch until the fourth quarter, where his final two receptions came on short routes for nine yards.

What transpired in between, and for most of the game overall, was exactly what Adams feared. Not everyone responded well to his latest expressions of frustration in the two weeks leading up to the Bears’ game because the Raiders were on a two-game winning streak.

But Adams’ underlying message was that the Raiders weren’t playing well enough to feel good about themselves, and now he’s got concrete proof. Against what had been one of the worst pass defenses in the NFL through six weeks, the Raiders could only muster 204 yards through the air and an average of less than 4.5 yards per attempt.

The statistics were much worse until the garbage-time drive where Aidan O’Connell relieved Hoyer and fired a nine-yard touchdown pass to Jakobi Meyers with 1:14 remaining. That was only after O’Connell first came onto the field and threw an interception on his fourth pass attempt.

Hoyer completed 17 of 32 passes for 129 yards with two interceptions.

“The reality is, that’s the NFL,” Hoyer said. “If you don’t come in on Sunday and execute, then that’s what’s going to happen. They came out and played better than we did, and that’s the result you see.”

The Raiders also lost control in the trenches with the Bears’ defensive front holding them to only 39 rushing yards on 14 attempts. The offensive inconsistency is nothing new but the Raiders had been playing well enough defensively to overcome it en route to evening their record at 3-3.

That didn’t transpire Sunday where they dropped back a game below .500. Much like the Bears’ defense keyed on Adams, their offense tried to limit the potential impact of star Raiders edge rusher Maxx Crosby.

“Our whole game plan was kind of centered on where he was on the field,” Bagent said of Crosby in his postgame news conference.

No one else proved capable of stepping up, as the Bears regularly ran rollouts for Bagent to the opposite side of Crosby and the Division II Shepherd University product responded with a mistake-free 162 yards through the air on 21-for-29 passing. Chicago ran the ball away from Crosby too with running back D’Onta Foreman having the biggest game of all with 89 rushing yards on 16 carries.

Foreman scored two early touchdowns on power runs through the middle of the line to put the Bears up 14-0.

“We didn’t play good enough,” Crosby said. “Simple as that.”

Foreman, who also had three receptions for 31 yards, helped give the Bears more breathing room with a five-yard touchdown catch to cap a 15-play, 93-yard drive on the home team’s first possession of the second half.

Hoyer stitched together arguably his best drive in response, finally connecting with Adams but also benefitting from a 46-yard pass interference flag thrown on a deep ball intended for rookie receiver Tre Tucker. But the Raiders had to settle for a second field goal from kicker Daniel Carlson, who made a 25-yard attempt to go with his earlier 42-yarder, after a couple goal line miscues.

First, running back Josh Jacobs appeared to come down with a receiving touchdown until replay determined he didn’t drag his second foot inbounds. Then, a slightly misfired pass intended for a wide-open Adams in virtually the same spot slipped through the receiver’s hands.

“I should have made that play,” Adams said. “I killed whoever that was out there, and then just didn’t make it.”

Still down two scores at 21-6, any hope of a dramatic comeback was vaporized when the Bears answered with a 54-yard field goal of their own with 6:34 to play and then an interception returned for a touchdown on the next play. Hoyer tried to force a pass to Adams, and cornerback Jaylon Johnson stepped in front of it before going untouched into the end zone.

That was the fatal mistake in a day full of them, ranging from Carlson missing his first field goal attempt to cornerback Marcus Peters not even attempting a tackle on a reverse that set up the Bears’ first score.

“I don’t think it was that we weren’t ready to play,” McDaniels said. “I thought our guys had energy and juice and were excited obviously for this opportunity, but we lost control of it at the line of scrimmage and were kind of playing the game backwards. That’s not a formula that has suited us.”

That’s something McDaniels and Adams can agree on, as the receiver also said his team his showed up with the right mentality.

“But that doesn’t matter at all,” Adams said. “Everybody can be ready. You can beat on your chest and have warpaint on your face: If you don’t make the plays, it doesn’t matter.”

Adams hasn’t felt like he’s had enough chances to make plays recently, though he stopped short of saying that again after the Bears’ loss. This time around, he made more of a team-wide criticism that the Raiders “need to mix it up a little better” by also getting their run game going.

Asked if he had confidence in that possibility, Adams responded affirmatively, for the most part.

“I’m always, as long as I’m here, going to have confidence to do what I’ve got to do, do my part to make sure I’m helping guys around me,” Adams said. “We’re going to work together to try to figure it out.”

The question now is if Adams truly wants to be in Las Vegas. He’s never said otherwise, but speculation of him being a trade target ahead of the Oct. 31 deadline — the day after the Raiders play at the Lions on Monday Night Football next week — has cropped up as he’s shared his unhappiness.

The Raiders informed teams they wouldn’t trade Adams under any circumstance this week, according to ESPN. They’re going to need to find a way to utilize him more than they have over the past four games, where Adams has neither a 100-yard game nor a touchdown, if that's the case.

“I feel like (the Bears) played a pretty solid game all around but it definitely had nothing to do with any crazy things they did,” Adams said when asked if the Bears changed how they defended him. “It was more us hurting ourselves.”

McDaniels agreed the Raiders hurt themselves in a number of ways too, but he cited the Bears as the reason they didn’t lean too much on Adams.

“To put this all to bed, we always try to get the ball to our best guys,” he said. “Sometimes, the defense plays things to take those opportunities away. Other times, they don’t."

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or