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Remember after the 2017 season, when the Las Vegas Raiders (then still in Oakland) hired Jon Gruden? And then he started to put his mark on the Raiders in a way that didn’t always make sense?
You’ll never believe it, but Gruden may regret any of these moves.
OK, so you will probably believe it. Especially since it is outside linebacker Khalil Mack, who was involved in one of the most memorable moves of Gruden’s first season with the Raiders.
Gruden exchange Khalil Mack
It all started when Gruden traded Mack to the Chicago Bears just over a week before the start of the 2018 season. In return, the Raiders got a package of draft picks.
This decision was considered quite questionable at the time, and not just because the Raiders lacked Mack-like talent. Mack did not want to play on the fifth-year option of his rookie contract and had instead waited for an extension. The Raiders made him an offer that Gruden said was far less than what Mack ultimately signed: a six-year, $ 141 million contract extension the Bears offered him shortly after trading for him.
Gruden said he had “cried for three days” after making this trade, so it’s not entirely surprising that he wants to try and bring Mack back to the Raiders at some point, is it. not? It turns out he would have tried to do just that.
Gruden tries to get Mack back
Let’s move forward in time until March 2021, just before the free agency kicks off. The Raiders needed some help getting through quickly since trading Mack in 2018, and what better player to fill that gaping void than Mack himself, right?
According to The Athletic’s Vic Tafur, Gruden called the Bears in March to see if they would be interested in sending Mack back to the Raiders for an unknown return. It’s a movement that regrets to slip away like stinky cartoon waves, and you can almost imagine the person who took that call at Bears headquarters putting their hand on the phone and saying to their coworkers ” you’ll never believe what Gruden just asked me. ”
It was not, however, completely far-fetched. Tafur pointed out that the Bears have some pretty big cap issues this offseason, and it was worth seeing if they’d be willing to fix that by offloading Mack and his big contract. But on the other hand, they’ve just drafted an incredibly promising quarterback and are trying to build something solid. Capping issues or not, trading Mack for the Raiders (or anywhere) isn’t the way you do it.
According to Tafur, the Bears told Gruden they weren’t interested, and they ended up fixing their cap issues in other ways. The Raiders have decided to sign Yannick Ngakoue to solve their problem. At this point, if Gruden is serious about fixing the problem he created when he traded Mack three years ago, he’ll likely need a time machine to do it.
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