Most people have their focus on the big trade of the 2019 offseason. One where the New York Giants shipped star wide receiver Odell Beckham to Cleveland. However, even today a lot of people are still discussing the Khalil Mack trade that took place last September. While receivers get dealt often in the NFL, superstar pass rushers rarely do.
It’s why so many still look at Oakland Raiders head coach Jon Gruden and ask the simple question. Really? It isn’t like Mack was the only commodity that the team had. They had a young nucleus in place with Derek Carr and Amari Cooper as well. All he had to do was reshuffle the deck around them and there’s no reason to think that team wouldn’t have had success.
Nope. The Raiders decided rather than paying one of the best players in the NFL money he’d earned, they’d ship him off to the Chicago Bears for what are essentially a series of dice rolls in the NFL draft. Gruden has since admitted during meetings down in Arizona that he didn’t handle the trade too way from an emotional standpoint.
Gruden said he “cried for 3 days after trading Mack. But we’re not able to get Antonio Brown, Trent Brown and Lamarcus Joyner without making that trade.” #Raiders
— Vic Tafur (@VicTafur) March 26, 2019
Subscribe to the BFR Youtube channel and ride shotgun with Dave and Ficky as they break down Bears football like nobody else.
Khalil Mack trade will either elevate Gruden’s legacy or destroy it
Making bold moves is part of how teams find success in the NFL. That goes for both on and off the field. Yet there’s a reason teams don’t give up generational players at premier positions. It’s because they can be hard to replace. Just looking at the top pass rushers arriving since he was selected 5th overall in 2014 says that much.
Demarcus Lawrence and Dee Ford were both selected in that same draft. They have 34 and 30.5 sacks respectively. Jadeveon Clowney, the #1 overall pick that year, has 29. Mack has 53. The only guy remotely close to matching that pace is Danielle Hunter who has 40 since being drafted in 2015. These guys aren’t easy to find.
With all due respect, the trio of players acquired by the Raiders by sacrificing Mack won’t change their situation. Antonio Brown is in his 30s now. Trent Brown is an okay left tackle being paid like a great one. Lamarcus Joyner is a solid defensive back who was let go by his previous team because they felt they could survive just fine without him.
That sales pitch by Gruden was the equivalent of applying frosting to a carrot cake. It improves the flavor a bit but it still tastes terrible. The fact he got emotional after moving Mack, whether he’s exaggerating or not, makes it clear he realized that his career would forever be changed by it.
Either he’d be hailed as the savior of the Raiders franchise once again, or he’d forever become known as the guy who gave away a Hall of Famer for a mixed bag of good and not-so-good players who are not.
