Jerod Mayo deflects question about Davante Adams

Now that the cat is out of the bag on a potential, if not inevitable, Davante Adams trade, coaches will be asked by reporters regarding potential interest in Adams. For the coaches, it's a potential tampering trap; some reporters don't realize that, and some of them will ask the question anyway.

Someone asked this question to Patriots coach Jerod Mayo on Wednesday: "There's a report out there that Davante Adams would prefer to be traded. Do you anticipate pursuing him?"

Said Mayo, "Yeah, look, the scouting department is on top of all of that stuff. I have not had conversations with Eliot [Wolf] in those regards."

It's a smart answer from Mayo. There's no reason to say anything about a player under contract with another team. (Then again, Wolf was surprisingly candid about 49ers receiver Brandon Aiyuk, at a time when he had received permission to seek a trade and thus talking about it could not be regarded as tampering.)

Apart from whether the Patriots are interested in Adams, here's no reason to think Adams would want to join the Patriots. They're not contenders. Adams won't make them into contenders — not unless rookie Drake Maye gets put on the field soon and starts lighting it up.

Adams will, or at least should, want to go to a place where he has a chance of playing in his first career Super Bowl. That won't be the place where six Super Bowl trophies reside.