Khalil Mack wants to make the Raiders pay for trading him.
That’s not conjecture. It’s what Mack told reporters this week and he also acknowledged that he was a little hurt by the Raiders decision to move on from him.
“Yeah, you could say I’m suppressing the emotional side of it,” Mack said of playing against his former team this week. “But the other side is to go out and make them pay for it… You could say I was disappointed, man, but that’s the nature of the business. You have to understand that, first and foremost, and let everything take care of itself. You only can control what you can control.”
Mack obviously felt and still feels like the Raiders didn’t value him and the Raiders, of course, would say Mack put them in a corner by threatening to holdout into the season.
In reality, there is no single person to blame for Mack’s exodus. The Raiders probably would have matched the contract Mack got from Chicago If Jon Gruden had stayed at ESPN and if Mack hadn’t tried to suck every penny out of the Raiders, he’d probably still be wearing silver and black.
Both team and player were within their rights to want what they got, and eventually we’ll know which team won the trade. Certainly the Bears got a jump out of the gate as they got a year of Mack for no compensation. But the Raiders got Josh Jacobs and have another first-round pick coming from Chicago in 2020 – though the Bears do have the Raiders second-round pick in 2020 (which is still a real head-scratcher).
Certainly Gruden has done everything possible to downplay the significance of facing Mack this week, but only a fool would believe Gruden isn’t feeling a huge amount of pressure to avoid Mack embarrassing his offense on Sunday – which is becoming a greater possibility with every update of the Raiders extensive injury report.
twitter: @raidersbeat
1st off lets start with erroneous comment that Raiders would have matched Bears offer had Gruden stayed at ESPN – the Raiders would not do any matching of offers as Mack at that time was Raiders’ property n all that was required was negotiating terms without any other team involved. Said terms would have been less than Bears offers that is a certainty. N truly the blame could be placed at feet of Mckenzie as Raiders should have restructured contract prior 2 Gruden arriving as was done with Carr. Finally, its very easy 2 derive at conclusion that Bears won trade. There is lil doubt as 2 that. Mack is hall of famer n Jacobs may be able 2 produce in NFL but not at Mack’s level. Mack raised defense in Bears (while pretty stout) taking them from rankings of 9, 10 & 11 in categories to 1st n 2nd (combined 2018 & 2019 thru 4 games). That is pretty significant n that is just statistical value it fails 2 account 4 the tremendous value Mack brings in other area such as causing other players in league 2 wanna come play 4 Raiders n those players would do so in more favorable terms for Raiders. After Gruden handling of Mack players that come 2 Raiders will only do so with substantial amount of guaranteed money.