It was a bit of a surprise that the Raiders traded for Christian Hackenberg last month and an even bigger surprise when they cut him on Tuesday.
Hackenberg was only with the Raiders for 22 days and barely saw any OTA reps as he shared what few backup reps were available with E.J. Manuel and Connor Cook.
Was Hackenberg really that bad in his limited time with the team?
Maybe, but there could be another explanation for why the Raiders parted ways with him right before minicamp (other than to make room for Frostee Rucker and Ahtyba Rubin).
It was brought up by OverTheCap.com’s Jason Fitzgerald on Tuesday that the Raiders may actually be able to re-sign Hackenberg (whose stock isn’t particularly high right now) for a lesser amount now that he’s a free agent.
The Raiders traded for Hackenberg in the third year of his rookie deal, but only stood to lose a seventh-round pick to the Jets if Hackenberg was on the roster for a certain amount of games.
If would be a crafty maneuver by the Raiders to save a little money by re-signing Hackenberg, but the real genius would be if the Raiders no longer owe the Jets a draft pick if Hackenberg makes the team.
Talking to CBS Sports cap expert and former agent, Joel Corry, the determination on the seventh-round pick would come down to the precise language of the trade conditions.
In other words, if the Jets didn’t protect themselves in the language of the trade, the Raiders could theoretically re-sign Hackenberg for less money and keep the pick they would have otherwise sent to the Jets.
twitter: @raidersbeat
Pretty silly if you ask me. Carr is obviously starting. EJ Manuel is a known commodity, albeit very mediocre. Cook is too young and cheap to bounce. Hackenburg might get asked to hangout on the practice squad, but I can’t see any way we carry 4 QB’s on the 53.
Wow! Genius!
I was saying yesterday this was THE stupidest thing they have done all offseason basically throwing away a 7th rd pick. But if this is the case… well done.
EJ Manuel is very mediocre? Lol, that is silly. EJ Manuel is a good quarterback, and could easily be a starter. He may be better then Carr. Our “franchise quarterback” is the definition of mediocre, yet in a lot of ways Manuel is better. We are never going to win a super bowl with Carr, the 12 win season was a fluke, and we were seconds away from losing half those games and being 6-10 or worse. We are paying Carr wayyy too much. Ever since we decided to overpay Carr and with Macks huge check pending, we screwed the rest of the team. This isn’t basketball where you only need 6 or 7 players. Gruden is great, but it going to take 4-5 years to undo what McKenzie and company has done in the last 5 years. When we are paying wayy too much for Carr and Mack, we are totally reliant on the draft to build a team. We had a decent draft this year, but we still need linebackers(literally we have an F at this position) Safety (all we hear is how bad they are…Obi, Joseph, etc etc), a solid tight end(maybe one that can block and catch?), a core running back(this goes without saying–Trash Mode and some mid 30s cast off are not going to cut it), wide receivers! (We literally have no future with Cooper (Who is terrible and can’t live off one solid game a year) Nelson (Great, but has no more than one or two years left) or Bryant (If he can stay off suspension, he will have a great year and move on to some other team) and a decent quarterback. Carr sucks–he is made of glass, clumsy as hell (broke his finger by being clumsy and being made of glass) he doesn’t have a great arm, isn’t good at scrambling, sucks in the pocket, and freaks out under pressure) WHY DID WE DRAFT A WHOLE OFFENSIVE LINE IN THE DRAFT???? BECAUSE CARR NEEDS AT LEAST 15 SECONDS OF PROTECTION TO COMPLETE A PASS!
Oh, 3rd and long…bubble screen to Washington for 3 yard. Oh, 3rd and long…3 yard slant to Cooper!
We have SOOO much work to do. It seems our strongest positions will be OL, DL, and Defensive Back this year…We have a start…but we aren’t going to build some dynasty we so many holes…