The biggest upset of the Raiders 2019 season?
No, it wasn’t the Colts in Indianapolis and it wasn’t the Bears in England. It wasn’t the Chargers and it definitely wasn’t the Broncos.
The biggest upset of the season is that most reasonable Raider fans seem to be over the Khalil Mack trade.
He wasn’t going to say it (though he did come close), but last year was miserable for Jon Gruden watching Mack dominate what seemed to be every other primetime game on television and propel the Bears into the playoffs. Fans were understandably aggravated (to put it nicely) with the team for trading Mack and it was starting to feel like the wound wasn’t going to heal anytime soon.
But at some point in the past two months (a Sunday afternoon in London comes to mind) the narrative started to change.
Based on yesterday’s poll (with more votes than any poll ever on our Twitter account), close to 90% of Raider fans on Twitter said they would not go back and reverse the trade that sent Mack to Chicago if they were given the opportunity. That’s a remarkable, even miraculous, turnaround considering the brutal coverage the Raiders endured in the 12+ months following the trade.
Suddenly, the Raiders have arguably one of the best running backs in football, a few promising young defensive linemen, an offense that is silencing more critics than we can count (some of them are real grumpy lately), and the Bears first-round pick (now owned by Oakland) seems to get better every Sunday. Mack is still one of the greatest players in the game, but the Raiders are surviving on defense and they saved a huge chunk of money that Chicago will have on the books for all of the foreseeable future. No one in Chicago is complaining about having arguably the best defensive player in football, but Mack’s record salary and the lost draft picks present quite a challenge for the suddenly-sorry Bears.
Now it’s the Bears looking for answers and Gruden looks a little bit like a genius.
What a difference a year makes.
On a related note, look at this poll taken in 2017…
twitter: @raidersbeat
I was always happy with the trade of Mack, he held out for more money with a year left on his contract and making over $13 million a year. Good riddins dude!! Plus all we hear is what a great teammate Mack is, well holding out and leaving his teammates behind doesn’t sound like a great teammate to me!!!
And DC is playing great and still he has hate from Raider stans. Khalil was a big loss and I did change my stance on the trade as well. Chucky is doing great and Mike Mayock is a front office genius it looks like. As Bob Dylan once said “the times they are changin’”. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for the Jets game.
AGREE, RAIDER FANS ARE OVER THE MACK TRADE AND SEE THE RAIDERS AS THE WINNER IN THAT TRADE DEBACLE. BUT THE ONE THING WE ARE NOT OVER , IS MARK DAVIS RIPPING OUR BELOVED TEAM OUT OF ITS HOME AND RUNNING FOR THAT VEGAS $. THE RAIDERS ARE OAKLAND, OAKLAND IS THE RAIDERS, BAR NONE. REMEBER MARK, CARMA IS A B****. MARK DAVIS: WANTED FOR TREASON
Well, a winning record and a nicely placed first round draft choice cures all sorts of butt-hurt!
You know…. That poll would’ve looked alot differently had you done it in the offseason when the trade happened..
For some reason EVERYONE is an NFL expert when trades like these happen.
This is proof that fans ( such as myself ) should stick to just that.. Fans.
Let the coaches and Gm’s do their thing because in the end It’s their decision 100% of the time.
Me personally…. I moved on the minute the trade happened… I had to, might not like the trade but it is what it is… And every real Raider Fan who knows Mr.Gruden knows what he brings, and that’s perfectly ok with me.
So let me see if I got this right. The Rams after 50 years in Los Angeles, bail on LA for greener $$ pastures in St Louis. After 20 years there they bail on St Louis for the promise of a 2 billion dollar stadium in Los Angeles. The fan base in LA was minimal at best in 1994 when you left and it looks like those fans have a long memory. And the 96 year old coliseum isn’t helping. The raiders aren’t drawing away your fans because they were never your fans to begin with.
Mack had to go. His loyalty was to money not the raiders.
I said from the start Mack not showing up or even contacting Gruden is not the type leader that deserves all that money as I know I’m in the minority but to me Mack is tad over rated.. as once while he disappears but no one says nothing.. to me from the start it was great trade and I didn’t know who we would draft at the time but we could at least focus on that
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