Oakland Raiders: A few points to help cope with grief in a post-Mack world

Where Will You Cut?

Building off of that train of thought, ask yourself one simple question when you berate Gruden and McKenzie for dealing Mack – where would you trim the fat to get Mack under contract?

Let’s face it, Gruden and McKenzie were in a no-win situation here. They were absolutely damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t.

To illustrate the point, let’s go back to Gruden’s comment about the defense not being very good with Mack on the roster. That’s quantifiably true. Is that Mack’s fault? Of course not. The man did everything in his power to make the defense respectable. But, you can’t field a team of thoroughbreds if you’re running with donkeys.

Oakland had (has) needs at linebacker, at corner, even at safety. Basically, the Raiders needed help everywhere on the defensive side of the ball – again, thanks in part to McKenzie’s poor drafting skills.

They need to bring in talent to shore up critical positions. And to bring in that talent, you need to have money. Had they paid Mack what the Bears paid Mack (or what the Rams paid Aaron Donald, for that matter), it necessitates that you skimp at other positions because of the cash flow. There are only so many dollars to go around under the cap, you know.

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Remember, guys like Rashaan Melvin are on one-year deals, and given that cornerback is a pretty critical position, if he performs well, he’s going to need to get paid if they want to retain him – or they can opt to keep the revolving door at the position spinning.

So, knowing that under the cap, there are only so many dollars available, and you need to construct a roster that can compete, and need to upgrade talent at several key spots, ask yourself this – where would YOU have made the cuts that would have been necessitated by giving quarterback money to a non-quarterback?

People are outraged because the team didn’t pay Mack. And yet, had they paid him, those same people would have been outraged because the team didn’t have enough talent around him (because, you know, they were short on cash after paying Mack that mammoth contract).

There was no way Gruden and the Raiders were going to win this one, so they opted to bite the bullet, withstand the firestorm, and give themselves the flexibility to build a roster that maybe, just maybe, people won’t complain about as loudly.