So maybe in the end no one won the original Khalil Mack trade (Oakland to Chicago) or the original Amari Cooper trade (Oakland to Dallas). We can shrug with some finality this weekend following reports that Cooper will end up to Cleveland for a small package of late-round picks, ending his time in Dallas with just over 1,000 yards, seven touchdowns and 80 catches per season. Mack reunites with Brandon Staley, his former linebackers coach with the Bears, in Los Angeles.
Mack had four more sacks as a Raider than he did with the Bears and earned another Associated Press first-team All-Pro nomination in Oakland. The Bears made the playoffs twice with Mack, losing in the wild-card round both times. The Cowboys made the playoffs twice with Cooper and won a playoff game, wild-card round win against the Seattle Seahawks in Cooper’s first season.
With their draft capital, the Raiders picked up safety Johnathan Abram (ranked as the worst overall safety by Pro Football Focus in 2020, with a slight improvement in 2021), Josh Jacobs, a Pro Bowl running back with more than 3,000 yards and 28 touchdowns in three seasons, Damon Arnette, a cornerback they released after posting videos on social media of himself showing off various weapons while threatening to kill someone, and wide receiver Bryan Edwards , a third-round pick from Michigan who began to blossom with playing time. With their cap space, their big signings included Antonio Brown, Trent Brown, Tyrell Williams, LaMarcus Joyner and Vontaze Burfict, all of whom did failed to produce at best, or failed spectacularly, causing a public relations nightmare at worst. .
Around this time, Gruden-built rosters made the playoffs once, last year, narrowly losing to the eventual AFC champion Cincinnati Bengals. sexist, racist and homophobic emails, will probably never coach again.
Imagine if we told you a few years ago, with Gruden on the dais for his introductory press conference backed by a custom highlight reel personally crafted from owner Mark Davis’ fondest dreams, that despite signing of his 10-year contract, he wouldn’t be in the league for the final evaluation of the two trades that defined his latest foray into coaching (from a professional standpoint, certainly not from a personal perspective).
What if, in the midst of all the hysteria about the Mack cast in Chicago and everything we thought it meant at the time, the right answer to all our questions was to remember that nothing is permanent in the NFL and what to do with plans outside of next year is completely silly?
Neither the Bears nor the Raiders reached the heights they imagined after Khalil Mack was traded to Chicago early in Jon Gruden’s tenure.
Stephen R. Sylvania/USA TODAY Sports
The past two years have certainly changed our perception of roster building for the better, especially in the context of all the seismic and unforeseen changes that have taken place in the NFL over the past decade. Andrew Luck’s retirement, for example, was a tipping point of sorts for players thinking more broadly about their future and their health. Sean McVay openly maintained a non-football life before the Super Bowl. Just like Aaron Donald. The two could be gone in a year or two. Aaron Rodgers almost cut the Packers out of his life to host Peril! It’s almost a guarantee that one of the NFL’s top five young quarterbacks won’t be part of the NFL’s regular day-to-day business in 2024.
We’re months away from a Rams team that traded nearly all of its remaining draft picks in the Biden administration for the chance of a Lombardi. We’re over a year away from the Buccaneers signing Tom Brady and his gang of merry hangers for a one-time Super Bowl run.
Neither could lead to much long-term stability, but weekends like this remind us that we shouldn’t care. A few years ago, when the Eagles won the Super Bowl, they had a handful of their young basemen all extended through the early 2020s and their NFC East reign seemed insurmountable. A few years prior, the Jims Harbaugh 49ers felt like the deepest team in football by a mile with a rising star young quarterback.
How interesting would it be if Mack’s third team was the one that could end up delivering the most consequences?
If nothing else, Saturday was just another reminder that understanding impermanence is a roster-building strategy in itself. There’s New England and the irreplaceable success that Bill Belichick has had on one side. of the list building spectrum and all the others sitting on the other. We should take this weekend’s events as a lesson to never allow ourselves to walk away from the current season again, imagining what will happen as soon as all of these big roster plans line up in a combination of perfect age, price and place on their development. curve.
Mack, ultimately, will be a minor footnote in Gruden’s legacy and ultimately nothing more than an exciting rental player for the Bears.Ryan Pace, Chicago’s general manager who traded for Mack, is now a personnel manager with the Falcons.
Mack steadily improved the Bears for a season before the Bears fell into mediocrity. His departure markedly worsened the Raiders for a season before they turned mediocre. And sometimes that’s all a trade is. That’s all it ends up being.
It’s worth keeping in mind as the collective universe of the NFL as we go through a period of significant movement this offseason. Russell Wilson is now a Bronco, Carson Wentz a Commander. Jimmy Garoppolo could soon be something other than a 49er. Which of these could end up being the precursor to a Super Bowl? Which of these will end up being nothing more than a pleasant trivial question a few years later, when the bizarre NFL reality TV show spins and alters all of our plans, big and small?
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