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What Was Davante Adams' Message to the Jets Behind Closed Doors?

IHC Jeff Ulbrich Says No. 17 Is ‘Making Us Better in So Many Ways’

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Davante Adams is well-known as an impact player on the football field. Now, only days into his tenure as an important member of the Jets, he's had an impact that has the potential to have more meaning than any pass caught or touchdown he conjures for the rest of the season.

A locker room speech to the team after Sunday's loss at Pittsburgh, which stayed behind closed doors and out of the public until it was brought to light by interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich on Wednesday, Adams left no doubt that he has no tolerance for anything but full commitment and energy.

Bottom line for No. 17: "Learning how to win and what it takes. The small things."

"I've played on teams that have that winning culture, and just, basically, I just took a moment to let them [his teammates] know," Adams told reporters Wednesday afternoon. "I had reservations about speaking up too early and being too vocal, too, too early. But I felt like in my mind I said F that because I need to ... we don't have time, and I got to do whatever I got to do to help this team move forward and lacking energy, I mean, that's a prerequisite to be able to go out there and have a good year, or have a good play, or, you know, whatever it is.

"So in my mind, it was something that I wouldn't have been able to sleep if I didn't speak up on it. And got a lot of good feedback, which it wasn't, it wasn't a big rah-rah thing. It was just more to bring awareness to it, because a lot of these guys in here haven't been anywhere else where they've won and have had that urgency that it takes in order to be a good team. So this team being so talented roster-wise, it's just a waste to have everybody out there and to have a dead sideline. Like that Breece [Hall] catch a ball, go 60 [yards], and we don't, we can't feed off none of the energy. And those types of plays are supposed to be contagious for the rest of the team. So that's basically what I saw."

Adams, 31, has only been with the Jets a little more than a week after being acquired in a trade from the Las Vegas Raiders. He has had a long and productive career in the NFL and particularly while playing with QB Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay. On Sunday, in his first game with the Green & White, Adams had 3 receptions for 30 yards, all in the first half when the Jets left the field with the lead. The Steelers scored the final 31 points of the game to send the Jets (2-5) to their fourth-straight defeat.

"He brought a different vibe to practice and meetings," Ulbrich said early on Wednesday before the team's walk-through ahead of Sunday's game at New England. "And even his talk he did after the game was just, I thought, spot on. Amazing. For a guy who just showed up to have the feel of the heartbeat of our locker room and to speak on it was ... he's making us better in so many ways. And it's not just between the white lines."

Adams and Rodgers have a unique relationship that goes beyond the 76 TD passes (in all games) he's caught from Rodgers, the most No. 8 has thrown to any single receiver in his 20-year NFL career. Since joining the Jets, Adams has been bunking with Rodgers, who said that on their drive back to his house he told Adams "how proud I am of what he said in that moment."

Though Adams spoke of trying to bring along some of the Jets' young players, he's also had an impact on a veteran like RT Morgan Moses.

"​​Seeing him as a guy that just got here, being able to speak his mind shows the mentality that he's bringing when he's just getting here," Moses said. "The mentality that he has in what he's shown over the course of his career. So, it's always good to have another leader, another guy that's done it so well over the course of his career, to be able to speak up."

Ulbrich, in his postgame post-mortem of Monday, said an overarching negative play -- Beanie Bishop's interception (his second of the game) and near pick-6 in the second half -- was a prime example of what Adams brings to the team. He was on the other side of the field as Bishop rambled down the home sideline, still Adams busted it to take him down at the 1-yard line.

"When you know better, you gotta do better," Adams said. "I know better in a lot of instances, I've been playing ball for a long time, and I've been a part of multiple clubs at this point. So having guys that I've looked up to, and I would watch, you know Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb, and see how these guys finished, and the mindset they had finishing, whether it's blocking, finishing practice, catch a ball, finish to the end zone, it's like, those type of things that I saw, and I'm like, 'OK, this is the way to do it right here.'

"The stop on the pick-6, those are the type of plays that I can show them right now. This is my mindset and why you should listen to the way that I'm speaking because I'm going out there and I'm showing you exactly. I'm practicing what I'm preaching on Sunday."

See the best photos of the Jets back on the practice field on Wednesday to kick off Patriots week.

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