Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams has thrown his support behind second-year signal-caller Aidan O'Connell on multiple occasions since he took over the starting job last season, and he did so once again recently.
Adams was a guest on Shannon Sharpe's podcast "Club Shay Shay" and talked about the difficulty of what O'Connell had to do during his first season, when he was "thrown into the fire" under center.
"(O'Connell has to) come in the game that Jimmy (Garoppolo) gets hurt and he's got to jump in and play against the Chargers and get sacked six times by the same person," he said. "That's not easy, and he kind of got thrown into the fire a bit."
Of course, the Purdue product was later given the starting job for good after former head coach Josh McDaniels got fired, and while he certainly had his struggles, O'Connell managed to finish the season strong.
Ahead of his second season and a training camp battle for the starting job against Gardner Minshew, O'Connell has the backing of his star receiver.
"I do believe in Aidan and I think he's going to be able to feel a lot more comfortable," Adams said. "He looked pretty good in OTAs and we're just going to continue to grow and learn from each other. I've always been a big advocate for him because when he first came in, he came in real confident, ballin' in the OTA period and in preseason and showed everybody what he has the potential to do. So, we just have to keep working, just like me and Aaron (Rodgers)."
While some fans are skeptical of both of the Raiders' quarterbacks, to say the least, Adams reminded everyone that Rome wasn't built in a day and O'Connell should be given the opportunity to grow and show what he can do.
"If you were trying to count your chickens before they hatch with me then you wouldn't have had any eggs," Adams joked. "Because my first two years weren't exciting nobody to think that it was going to amount to this... I'm the main person sitting there saying everybody relax, you've got to give time for the flower to grow. We're watering it right now and ultimately see what happens with it. It's hard to say for sure like we're going to win a Super Bowl right now but we got a lot of work to put in still and we got a good chance to get a lot better."
This is the second time Adams has endorsed O'Connell recently. He also stated he thinks the starting job is O'Connell's "right now" and that Minshew has to take it from him.
