Raiders Derek Carr and Davante Adams bring Fresno-bred trust to Las Vegas

HENDERSON, Nev. — The first conversation Derek Carr and Davante Adams ever had, that’s a little fuzzy.

The first completion? That’s crystal clear.

“I remember the first moment on the football field,” Carr said last month at training camp. “Obviously, I remember talking to him a couple of times before that, but on the football field when he ran a certain route, and I went to (former Fresno State coach) Pat Hill, I was like, ‘He’s not going to be here five years.’”

Josh Harper, then a redshirt freshman receiver at Fresno State when Adams joined the program in 2011, remembers that day, too.

“He had this confidence to him and we’re looking at him like, ‘Hold on, this is a pretty good receiving corps. You’re not fitting to just come in and take over,’” said Harper, who later spent the 2015 offseason with the Raiders as an undrafted free agent.

“But then that first route we saw … we’re like, ‘Hey, OK … this dude is the real deal.’ It was a bomb, and mind you Derek is just not going to throw a deep pass to people who aren’t going to play. But he obviously saw something in ’Te right away, as well. I remember that like it was yesterday.”

Carr knew Fresno State’s plan for Adams. Carr’s older brother, David, redshirted his freshman year at Fresno State before developing into a star quarterback and the No. 1 pick in the 2002 NFL Draft. Derek redshirted, as well, and like his brother, watched the games from the coaches’ booth in the press box so he could learn the system and see the game better.

Adams, despite the younger Carr’s pleas, would redshirt, as well. And then he would leave two seasons later for the NFL, having amassed 233 catches and 3,030 yards in just 26 career games with the Bulldogs.

Carr was remembering this again recently, as he’s been celebrating a reunion with Adams, his close friend, college teammate and the consensus best receiver in the NFL. The Raiders open their season Sunday in Los Angeles against the Chargers, and something that Carr’s been teasing for years — throwing the ball to Adams in a Raiders jersey — has finally come true.

One of the most prolific connections in college football history is all warmed up and ready to go.

Derek Carr & Davante Adams at Fresno State from 2012-13:

◻️ Adams led the FBS in receptions, rec yards, & rec TDs
◻️ Carr led the FBS in pass yards & pass TDs
◻️ The Bulldogs won the inaugural MWC Championship Game

(H/T @NFLResearch)

🎥 @FresnoStateFB pic.twitter.com/CkmsN7yyOd

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) March 18, 2022

“It’s crazy,” Harper said. “It feels like we hit the ‘past’ button on the time machine and I get to see my boys link up again. Create that same magic they created at Fresno.”

Carr and Adams both love basketball and the NBA — where players call their shots and new teams all the time — but Adams didn’t know that he and Carr could pull it off. Not until Adams had the leverage of not signing a new deal with the Packers, who had placed the franchise tag on him, and forced a trade to the Raiders in March. Adams had reportedly told Green Bay he would not play for them this season under the franchise tag.

“It was really (only) an idea up until it was done because it’s never easy to make that happen,” Adams said last month. “You see it in the NBA all the time, guys make it happen and get where they want to be any type of way they got to do it.

“It’s crazy for the fans for Fresno State, crazy for the Raider fans, all of California and obviously the people that support us individually, too.”

GO DEEPER

Raiders trade for Davante Adams and reunite him with Derek Carr

Hill, Fresno State’s coach from 1997 to 2011, remembers the first time he saw Derek Carr.

“I have known Derek since he was 8 years old,” Hill said in a phone interview. “He loved football and he used to bring his Nerf ball to practice every day, and him and my kids and the other coaches’ kids would all play football in the corner while we were practicing.”

Derek was the president of the David Carr fan club and grew up watching game film with his brother, who is 12 years older. He knew early on he wanted to follow in his brother’s footsteps.

“I pretty much knew from the beginning that Derek was hopefully going to be a Bulldog one day,” said Hill, whose first season as Fresno State’s head coach was David’s redshirt freshman year.

Adams, on the other hand, was not on Hill’s radar until the last minute. Adams was a late bloomer at Palo Alto (Calif.) High, a 6-foot-1 basketball star who was not going to be tall enough to make it at the next level. But he was starting to post up defensive backs as a receiver on the football field, jumping over them and running by them.

“The first time I saw Davante was him playing a basketball game,” Hill said. “I didn’t have a whole bunch of tape on him as a senior in high school. My receivers coach (Keith Williams, now with the Ravens) said, ‘We gotta go see this guy.’

“He was just an unbelievable athlete with great hands and great agility, and I had some success with other receivers that had played a lot of basketball and went on and played at the next level.”

Williams made a strong connection with Adams’ mom, Pamela Brown, and got Adams to step up his effort in the classroom.

“I had two offers coming out, San Diego State and Fresno State,” Adams said. “My grades weren’t where they should have been when I was offered, and they really took a chance on me because I had to pick it up my last two years. … I took like eight classes my last year while people were taking four and already knowing where they are going to school.

“I love telling this story because it’s good for people to hear, for the young people to hear, to know that it’s never too late, especially if you have a great support system like what I do.”

Davante Adams had a Mountain West-record 131 receptions as a senior at Fresno State. (Damon Tarver / Cal Sport Media via Associated Press)

Carr quickly became a member of that support system when Adams hit the Fresno State practice field.

“I remember saying that we don’t need to redshirt him, let him play,” Carr said. “And Pat was like, ‘No, no, no, no. I’m going to let him grow,’ which it ended up working out for him, obviously. I would throw the routes to my guys that were playing in the game and then (to) Davante just to build that chemistry before we got to play because you could just see that he was a special talent, for sure.”

Hill has no second thoughts about his decision.

You would think he might. The Bulldogs went 4-9 in 2011, Hill’s third losing season in 15 years in Fresno, and he was fired. He never got to enjoy the spoils of the Carr-Adams connection, but still has no regrets.

“I thought redshirting would be good for him,” Hill said. “Derek essentially redshirted for two years — he didn’t play for two years. David sat out for three years before he started and then was the No. 1 pick in the draft.

“Davante could have played that first year, but we had enough receivers to get through and I thought he was a guy that … sometimes when you have somebody that’s going to be really, really special, you hold them out a year. I don’t know if you can do that now with all the changes in college football, but that way they really have a chance to learn the program like David and Derek did.”

Carr threw for 3,544 yards, 26 TDs and nine interceptions that 2011 season, with Jalen Saunders — who transferred to Oklahoma after that season and was later a fourth-round pick of the Jets in 2014 — as his top receiver.

When new coach Tim DeRuyter arrived ahead of the 2012 season, he also had his first impression of what could be for the Bulldogs’ offense shaped by Adams’ basketball skills.

“I remember Davante hosting some of our recruits, and I saw a bunch of them together and they were all looking at Davante’s cellphone,” DeRuyter told Raiders.com. “They were going ‘ooh‘ and ‘ahh,’ and I go, ‘What are you guys looking at?’

“Davante showed me and it was him doing dunks. And he was windmilling, doing any type of dunk you wanted him to do. It was a big-time highlight tape. You saw him physically — he looked like a grown man doing that. And that was the first time I thought this guy could be special.”

Like Carr, Adams was a gym rat and was always hanging around the football offices before and after practices — and before and after the season.

“When I was on the Ravens’ staff, (late coach) Ted Marchibroda would say, ‘There are a lot of guys that like everything about football except football,'” said Hill, who coached the Ravens tight ends and offensive line in 1996. “Derek and Davante love football. They play with passion and the two of them together again, I think, will be very, very special.”

Carr and Adams roomed together for Fresno State’s away games. They were so interconnected that they pushed themselves to the point where they were confident no matter who they played or where.

“They have similar personalities and interests — basketball, golf, they can joke around, they’re not super serious — family people,” Harper said. “And they had to be the best.

“Derek wanted to be the best quarterback in college football, and I think he was. ’Te wanted to be the best receiver in college football, and I think he was. Now they’re trying to be the best at their positions in the NFL. I believe they’re close to it. ’Te is there. They definitely have that dog in them.”

Carr threw for 4,104 yards, 37 touchdowns and seven interceptions their first season together in 2012, while Adams accounted for almost a third of those yards — 1,312 on 102 catches, with 14 TDs. Harper added 79 catches for 1,011 yards and 13 scores as the Bulldogs improved to 9-4 and earned a share of the Mountain West championship along with Boise State and San Diego State.

.@derekcarrqb and @tae15adams have always looked good in a black uniform 😏 pic.twitter.com/FzrdUZW5xE

— Las Vegas Raiders (@Raiders) March 18, 2022

“One of the things that I really loved about Derek is that he trusted me to throw the ball up,” Adams said. “He trusts my football acumen, whatever it was, just trusting that I knew what I was doing and what I was talking about at all times. So, that helped a lot.”

Besides knowing how to read defenses before he ever cracked open a book that didn’t have big pictures, Carr can throw the ball farther than most people can run. And drop it in a bucket.

“Obviously, he’s an amazing arm talent,” Adams said. “His confidence is through the roof. And I think a part of what helped establish that was throwing to guys like myself, Josh Harper, Isaiah Burse, Marcel Jensen, all those guys. We were his go-to guys at Fresno and we gave him a reason to trust us.”

It was the start of a beautiful relationship.

“(His) gunslinger mentality, that’s what I’m all about because I’m a volume receiver,” Adams said. “I want to see as many footballs as I can.”

Adams has perfected getting off the line of scrimmage since Fresno, with his fluid movements not unlike a basketball player about to use a crossover dribble to leave a defender leaning the wrong way.

In college, he relied on just being bigger, faster and wanting the ball more than the defender, with his body control in the air making him nearly impossible to defend. And if all of that wasn’t enough, he knew exactly where his quarterback was going to place the ball.

“’Te really believes nobody can guard him, and I believe it, too,” Harper said.

Carr would use hand motions at the line of scrimmage to help his receivers make adjustments against the defense’s coverage. And often with Adams, Carr would not even need his hands — he would just tilt his head a certain way and Adams would act accordingly, as if Carr had whispered something to him that no one else could hear.

“’Te was still practicing with us in 2011 even though he was redshirting, so by 2012 we were all clicking,” Harper said. “We were making up our own signals on the fly. We had all the nonverbal queues with Derek — it was like we were all twins. We always knew what each other and Derek was thinking. It was special.”

In 2013, Carr led the nation with 5,083 yards and 50 touchdowns — he remains one of only eight players in college football history to accomplish that feat. Adams averaged a ridiculous 10 catches a game, finishing with 131 receptions to lead the nation. His 1,719 yards receiving were a school record and his 24 touchdowns were a Mountain West conference record.

College QBs with 50 TD passes in a single season

Their obsessive work habits carried over after the 2014 NFL Draft. Carr went with the No. 36 pick to the Raiders and Adams went 17 picks later in the second round to the Packers.

“We were working out together for the first six years of our NFL career anyway because we lived right down the street from each other once I moved up to Danville (California),” Adams said. “So, we were probably throwing three times a week for five, six years. Had about a two-year gap when the team moved out here (to Las Vegas), but basically picked up where we left off.”

Adams scoffs at players who post videos of their offseason workouts on social media. He is too busy running full-speed routes in the park to wonder how many fans would have liked his post.

Carr is wired the same way, and all six of his Raiders head coaches in his eight seasons have watched him stay after practice like a rookie to get something perfect.

Adams had a recent example from training camp.

“We both are so committed and obsessive over our craft to where I messed something up at the end of practice, just a subtle thing, and we go back out there after,” he said. “I just want to feel that and we do it because that’s the way we did it before.

“Anytime he didn’t like a ball he threw in a period, he had me go stand in the spot that I would have been catching the ball and then he’ll fire it until he liked how he threw it, which is usually one more pass. But when you got two dudes that have worked together and already built up a lot of camaraderie and have a close friendship, I feel like that makes it so much easier kind of getting back and jelling the way you were before.”

Carr and Adams were unstoppable in the recent two joint practices against the Patriots, which served as the duo’s preseason because neither played in any of the four games.

“So far it’s been good, it’s been fun,” Carr said.

Both have said they are excited about new coach Josh McDaniels’ system, one that helped the Patriots win six Super Bowl rings. Every Raiders receiver, whether it be Adams, Hunter Renfrow, tight end Darren Waller or Mack Hollins, is a threat on every play

“Pretty much every pass you have a No. 1 read or whatever, but you can get the ball from anywhere,” Adams said. “You can be a guy that’s setting up another guy, but the coverage can dictate that you get the ball.

“I’ve been a part of, whether it was college or early in my career or whatever it may be, where you know you got the dummy route as they say. But there’s really no dummy routes in this offense, and the whole coaching staff, they got a brilliant football mind. It keeps every guy alive in the offense … and there’s so many different things that kind of marry up and keep the defense honest and make it pretty tough for the defense to know what’s coming.”

Well, Adams getting his numbers is a pretty good guess. Last season, he became only the fourth player in league history to record 110 receptions and 1,300 receiving yards in three different seasons. And this season, he can do it outside of Aaron Rodgers’ shadow and with his college buddy, while trying to lead the Raiders to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in 20 years.

“It’s neat,” Hill said. “I am really happy for Derek and Davante. It’s a great opportunity for them to do something very special out there in Las Vegas, and I hope they do.”

(Top photo: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57km5tcmpmbnxzfJFrZmlxX2WEcLDEq5ykZZOWv7N5w5qtmqakmnqisMCmqmaqkZ6xpr7SZqWfpF8%3D