Playing press coverage against Rams wide receiver Davante Adams is like touching a hot plate after the server warns against it: It almost always results in someone getting burned, but people still do it for some reason.
Against the Buccaneers on Sunday Night Football, Adams torched cornerback Zyon McCollum off the line of scrimmage for a 24-yard touchdown. A quick hop into an inside jab with Adams' left foot opened McCollum's hips to the middle of the field, even though he had outside leverage pre-snap. When the veteran wideout planted and released down the right sideline on a go route, he'd gained a step on the fourth-year corner, who never recovered.
During the week, Adams studied McCollum. He noticed that the Bucs corner liked to "shoot his hands" early and then retreat to keep up with the route downfield. But on the first snap, he stayed tight after the jab, which Adams assumed was based on his own study of Adams' hop off the line, thinking he'd be susceptible to closer coverage early in the route. He was wrong. Adams swatted his hands down on his first catch of the game, which went for a one-yard touchdown on a goal-line fade.
So on that second touchdown, McCollum's arms remained at his side, and he tried to match Adams with his feet. That didn't work either. Quarterback Matthew Stafford's pass fell right in the bucket and Adams ran into the tunnel after scoring his 12th touchdown of the season.
"Poor kid," Adams said postgame of McCollum. "He just was the one in the way today and it wasn't anything personal, it's just the way it gotta go."
Adams' releases are a thing of wide receiver legend. He's become famous for winning on routes before they even begin, often gaining a step or two on his defender with an effective release off the line. Adams' detailed film study helps him tailor his releases to specific opponents based on their build, skill set and tendencies. His body control brings that to life on game days.
After the Rams' Week 12 win, Adams told the Sunday Night Football crew that when the ball is snapped, a metaphorical "terminator mask" comes down showing his tried and tested release options based on the coverage.
"If he's right there, hard press... a little scroll comes down (with) three releases of potential things I want to use. I kind of generate a plan," Adams said. "If I got a little cushion, a different scroll pops down and I gotta close that cushion first and then get up there. And if he's off-coverage, three things drop down there for that one... It's a different way you attack it based on his leverage and where his positioning (is) as it pertains to where you are on the field."
In a 2020 interview with Brian Baldinger, Adams said he "coined the hop" off the line of scrimmage, which begins most of his routes. In general, Adams acknowledged that move is "frowned upon" because it leaves most receivers vulnerable to being knocked off balance by physical defenders in press coverage. Adams isn't most receivers. He trusts his feet to get back on the ground before the corner can disrupt his rhythm.
When they do try to lay hands on him early, Adams reacts with connected hand and foot movements, he told Charles Woodson during a 2018 interview. That sudden skip is just the start of his release, however, a means to creating leverage for himself. It's, quite literally, a step-by-step process, as his next moves depend on the defender's reactions.
"I never go up and say, 'I'm about to do this to this guy,'" Adams told Baldinger.
Ahead of Week 13, Adams broke down the scouting process that helps him prepare to successfully release against specific opponents. First, he looks at how tall and "rangey" corners are before examining their tendencies based on down, distance and game situation. "Do they shoot their hands? Are they a soft-shoot corner where they back out of there? Where (do) they pressure you to interrupt the timing?" Those are just a few of the things he asks himself while reviewing film in varying contexts.
"Playing the down is the most important part," Adams said. "You have to understand coverages and a lot of different things... You just scout out the guy and what he likes to do and then formulate a good plan based off of that to execute your job."
Things change throughout games, like they did on Sunday, and those alterations create a chess match that Adams plays from the fist snap to the last. He'll even release on run plays to gauge a defender's approach against him specifically, knowing he's an outlier. But corners have thrown everything they could at Adams throughout his storied career, and he's had answers for most (if not all) of their attempts to sabotage his first steps.
"It's just a big cerebral game out there," Adams said. "A lot of people don't hone in on it like I do. I find that gives me a big edge."
Eight of Adams' league-leading 12 touchdowns have come inside the five-yard line (double the next-closest player), and his extensive release package has facilitated that success. When the field shrinks in the low red zone, corners are forced to hug the line of scrimmage, and that's when Adams excels. During the Rams' six-game win streak, he's has been targeted 10 times in that context, resulting in eight catches that all ended with No. 17 dancing in the end zone.
Against the 49ers in Week 10, Adams lined up across from Malik Mustapha on the two-yard line, but the safety was playing with a four-yard cushion. So, instead of skipping forward right after the snap, Adams closed the gap and then hopped into a quick inside jab before sprinting to his left on a quick out route. Mustapha matched that movement with a subtle inside step of his own, but was caught flat-footed. Adams beat him clean to the outside for a touchdown and went tumbling into a Rams cameraman on the sideline.
"Since I've been coaching, there's nobody that's been better about being able to get parallel and work edges on people," said head coach Sean McVay. "That's a special trait... There's an art to it when you hear him articulate it."
A week prior, Adams scored two touchdowns against the Saints using that same quick cut, this time off the line. On the first play, he squared up the defender with a right step, then his left foot provided a burst of speed into a slant. The second came off a similar move, but inverted, which turned into a goal-line fade. Both corners tried and failed to jab him off the skip, which is likely why he got both feet down afterwards, so he wouldn't lose balance.
When Adams wants to win quickly in a short-distance situation, that sudden footwork is a game-changer. Sometimes, he doesn't even get both feet down after the hop, but just uses his plant foot like a pogo stick to explode into the route (see his two goal-line fades against Jacksonville in Week 7). Neither Jacksonville corner was particularly handsy, so Adams used his burst off one leg to gain quick leverage. That slight variation in tempo keeps defenders constantly guessing, even when they know the ball is likely coming his way.
"Since he's been in the league in '14, he's probably the best release guy of that time," said offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur. "... He knows ball really well. It's the stuff that he does within the moment and why he's doing it, it's next-level type of stuff. If you want to have the career that he's had, a hall of fame career, you're going to think that way."
He also incorporates more complex moves off the line for longer-developing plays. On a crossing route in the third quarter against Tampa Bay, Adams hopped into inside leverage before giving the defender a three-step crossover, straight out of the Allen Iverson playbook. Adams, a former basketball player himself, has said that Iverson and other hoopers have inspired his bag on the football field as well as the hardwood.
The cornerback, Kindle Vildor, stumbled and was a good four steps behind Adams by the time he reached the left hash. Adams knew he needed to win to his right, and his initial skip gave him that edge without showing his hand to Vildor. He used a similar inside move only to explode toward the sideline on both of his touchdown grabs earlier in the game, so there was no telling where he would take that next step. A subsequent shake toward the boundary made Vildor hesitate, and he was gone.
"Even the way I release now, it's more basketball than it is football, which I can attribute a lot of the reasons why DBs have issues, because it's more unconventional to what they've seen," Adams said on Inside Rams Camp earlier this year.
This is the usage McVay intended for Adams when he signed a two-year deal with the Rams this offseason. McVay, who has long admired Adams' abilities, has created an environment for him to thrive by putting him in favorable situations that amplify his strengths. He made that vision clear to Adams during their various (and constant) international recruiting calls in the spring, while Adams was vacationing in Japan.
But before McVay could truly implement Adams' skill set into the playbook, he had to understand it. Shortly after signing, he took Adams out to dinner at The Bird Streets Club in West Hollywood, where he got a table in a private room as a member of the club.
During the meal, Adams actually got up and showcased some of his releases, explaining his approach to exploiting defenders off the line of scrimmage. Adams said jocularly said that McVay is "an elite individual," which leant them the privacy to do that without the gaze of prying eyes.
"You're talking about two football meatheads, or football nerds I guess you could say, that think about the game in a very intricate way," Adams said. "His angle is a lot different than mine, being a coach. Me being able to talk to him about some stuff and get him excited about a few things, basically making some of these plays come to life before I even had the opportunity to run some of the routes, it was fun."
Thankfully, nobody touched a hot plate on that occasion. Both Adams and McVay prize patience and forethought – they don't feel the need to do things that often end poorly just for the sake of trying.
There's only one way someone could have been burned in that private room at The Bird Streets Club – if an unsuspecting server walked across Adams' path during his demonstrations.
