Trading Mack right move — for Las Vegas Raiders
OAKLAND >> Trading Khalil Mack was always an option for Jon Gruden’s Raiders — if the price was right, of course.
Saturday, the Chicago Bears met that price. And it was steep.
Mack is moving to Chicago in exchange for two first-round picks and two more later in the draft.
This transaction makes a ton of sense for the Raiders — the Las Vegas Raiders.
For Raiders fans in Oakland, the Mack trade is a punch in the gut — an immediate and swift dissipation of the illusion that this team is ready for seri-
ous contention in the final years (or year) of their East Bay residency.
Those fans are now on the same page as Gruden.
Here’s the cut-and-dry of the situation: Gruden didn’t believe he could build the Raiders into a true Super Bowl-contending team by giving a defensive end “quarterback money” on top of Derek Carr’s $25 million-a-year deal.
It’s hard to argue with that logic.
Giving Mack a contract that would pay him roughly $23 million a year would have meant that nearly a quarter of the Raiders payroll would be going to two players. It also would have limited Gruden’s ability to upgrade a roster that, frankly, needs plenty of renovation over the next few years.
Lock in both Carr and Mack long-term and you’re likely locking in a team with an eight- or nine-win ceiling for the next few years. That’s good, but not great, and I don’t think Gruden signed up for that. I don’t think the people of Las Vegas
would be thrilled with that, either. It’s not like there aren’t other places the entertainment dollar can go.
There are plenty of questions — fair ones — about trading Mack a few days before the season starts. Why now? The rationale behind it is simple, though unsavory: Aaron Donald and the Los Angeles Rams reset the market for defensive linemen Friday with a sixyear, $135 million deal, and Gruden decided he wasn’t going to match that or Donald’s $87 million signing bonus.
That meant Mack would hold out well into the regular season or Gruden would relent on his stance that a defensive player — even an objectively great one — is not worth as much as a quarterback. That was going to be one awesome game of chicken, and I don’t know who would have won.
Gruden didn’t want to play — so he called off the game.
Yes, Mack has Hall of Fame potential, but again, he’s not worth as much as a quarterback. A competent starting quarterback is worth three wins per season (see: Garoppolo, Jimmy), and a great quarterback is worth five or six
(see: Rodgers, Aaron).
And to get two firstround draft picks for a player who was never going to sign a long-term deal with the Raiders. Yes, I said never. If Gruden didn’t want to give Mack his fair-market value going into this season, he certainly wouldn’t give Mack a long-term extension going into next year, when he would be even more expensive.
On top of the game of chicken, the Raiders and Mack were heading to
franchise-tag purgatory that might have resulted in Mack leaving, without anything in return, before the Raiders left for Las Vegas.
Mack is great, but everything about the situation doesn’t seem worth the trouble for Gruden. Jon hates distractions.
Signing Mack is the Bears’ issue now, though it’ll be easier for them to manage because they have a quarterback on a rookiescale contract. Officially, the Raiders will receive
first-round picks in 2019 and 2020, a third-rounder in 2020 and a sixth-rounder in 2019, giving up a secondround pick in 2020, plus a conditional fifth-rounder in 2020.
Gruden, in turn, has four first-round picks in the next two drafts. He’ll be heading into Vegas with a team that, in theory, will be young and built in the coach’s image.
I’m not sure if the people of Nevada should be excited or scared.
Remember: Gruden was a terrible general manager the last time he had full control of a team. His poor drafting, paired with on-field micromanaging, created a toxic situation in Tampa Bay, who fired him in 2009.
And make no mistake, Gruden is the Raiders’ general manager. If there was any doubt in your mind before today, it should be eliminated.
Reggie McKenzie — who was going to sign Mack this past offseason — might still hold the GM title, but he’s a highly compensated assistant to Gruden, handling the day-to-day stuff under the coach’s direction and standing in as a scapegoat for his decisions.
Gruden says that’s not the case — maintains that he and McKenzie work alongside each other — but the truth of the matter is that Gruden says a lot of things: All of them sound good, but not all of them are true.
No, the Mack deal seals it: This is 100 percent Gruden’s team. And it’s a team that’s in a quasi-rebuilding state.
So what will Gruden’s end product be?
That’ll be Las Vegas’ problem soon enough.