Red Larrivee wrote:dice wrote:of course mack is more valuable. you missed the point, which is that only ONE of the assets the raiders ended up with himself held his own against mack while allowing just ONE of the other assets they got to run the ball down the bears' throats. the two of them combined were WAY more impactful in that game than khalil mack was
I'm not disputing that. Brown makes an already-formidable run-blocking unit much better. Any team can trade their best players for picks and cap space and find more depth in players to fill out other positions. However, it doesn't necessarily make you a better team in the long run. You still need standout players.
having standout players with a thin roster is no better than having above average players across the board. that's reality
they got loads of cap space, josh jacobs and another first rounder AND third rounder this offseason. what in the world are you talking about? and the nfl MINDS gave the raiders trade of the year. the average meathead fan saw the bears' improvement and mistakenly attributed it all to the biggest name on the team, whereas the reality is that the defensive improvement was in large part internal. and the substantial offensive improvement was more important to the team's overall improvement
The Raiders got killed for this move.
of course they did. except by smart people. because the fans and media in general don't know their heads from their asses. everybody assumes that whoever gets the best player automatically wins the deal. which is, of course, totally false. a year later they're reevaluating it and see things a bit differently. and the further this goes along the likelier it is that the truth will be recognized. but they'll still completely ignore who the raiders were able to sign with the money freed up. THAT would require too much awareness of the realities of a hard salary cap. so they'll say "well, who did the raiders end up with with those draft picks" and that will be the extent of how much thought they put into it
This would be like applauding the Houston Texans for moving J.J. Watt for picks and cap space. I'm sure you could get a few good players by doing that, but overall they're not going to impact a game like Watt will long-term.
for god's sake i've PROVEN that this is false. market value players other than quarterbacks DO. NOT. IMPACT. WINNING. line up all the market value superstars over the past several years and their teams average a
.500 winning percentage. you just picked a player that is a great example of that! the texans have not been successful in the j.j. watt era
the packers were lucky to get outbid for mack, they're spending significantly less than the bears on their defense (which has been as good so far) and they've spent more money on their much better offense. ironically, the packers offer for mack ended up being better given the unexpected draft positions of both teams last year
top packers salary on defense: 7.25 mil
the niners went after mack aggressively, missed out, built through the draft and free agency rather than give up assets and have been crushing souls on defense this year
Remember: This move only happened because Khalil Mack DID NOT want to play for Jon Gruden. It wasn't about the Raiders preferring picks and cap space over him. There were rumors that Gruden wanted to wait until after Mack's season to work out a deal, but Mack wanted security before taking the field.
you just completely contradicted yourself in the space of 3 sentences. mack DID NOT want to play for gruden...but he would have if he got the contract he wanted...except that gruden didn't want to give it to him? you could have phrased it in exactly the opposite way and made just as much sense: "john gruden DID NOT want to coach khalil mack. mack wanted a record contract but the raiders didn't want to give it to him when he still had a year left on his deal. he would have had to take a discount for that to make any sense for the raiders"
this had everything to do with money. if mack truly didn't want to play for gruden and wanted to be traded the oakland-bears game would not have been a "revenge game" for mack. because he would have gotten what he wanted. but really his feelings were hurt because he wanted the last year of his deal torn up and to be given a fresh record deal no questions asked
