2021 Free Agency

[NYRaider]

11 minutes ago, Jeremy408 said:

Now what you’re saying isnt necessarily wrong but till this day I will defend the Mack trade.

The Mack trade was more than just losing a top tier edge player. It got the Gruden regime off to a very bad start, especially considering the timing. How often does a franchise, all-pro level talent get traded a couple of weeks before the start of the season? That move as well as trading Cooper a few weeks later were just bad looks for the franchise, especially because it was potentially our last season in Oakland. 

Then Gruden tried to make up for it by trading for Brown to have an exciting marquee name on the roster during our final season in Oakland and we lost him a couple of weeks before the season as well. 

[MrOaktown_56]

47 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

He's older now but was an All-Pro in 2019. I was 100% against signing him at $14M APY but highly unlikely he gets a big deal as the free agent market begins to dry up. 

Yeah if we can get him for something reasonable, he's a good player to have on your team. He had a ripple effect on the 49ers secondary.

[NYRaider]

Sheldon Rankins signs with the Jets for 2 yr/$17M. They've made a few nice defensive signings with Lawson, Rankins, Joyner (assuming he is played at safety), and Davis. 

Their defense might not be too bad with pieces like Quinnen Williams, CJ Mosley, Marcus Maye, in addition to the guys they've added. 

[NYRaider]

2 minutes ago, MrOaktown_56 said:

Yeah if we can get him for something reasonable, he's a good player to have on your team. He had a ripple effect on the 49ers secondary.

I'm assuming he'll be seeking something similar to what Patrick Peterson got from Minnesota, 1 yr/$10M. 

[Jeremy408]

7 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

The Mack trade was more than just losing a top tier edge player. It got the Gruden regime off to a very bad start, especially considering the timing. How often does a franchise, all-pro level talent get traded a couple of weeks before the start of the season? That move as well as trading Cooper a few weeks later were just bad looks for the franchise, especially because it was potentially our last season in Oakland. 

Then Gruden tried to make up for it by trading for Brown to have an exciting marquee name on the roster during our final season in Oakland and we lost him a couple of weeks before the season as well. 

I think anybody can make that assessment now that the players had already been drafted and I think a lot of us have forgotten the situation at the time but at the time it made complete sense.

I’ll start by saying that I’ve actually met Khalil Mack before and he was my favorite player on the Raiders when he played and all-around one of the best defensive players in this league. With that being said here the things we have to consider... 

1. The real problem is what Reggie McKenzie left for us in terms of salary Kaep by paying Sean Smith Crabtree Gabe Jackson and I’m sure I’m missing others before paying Khalil Mack. It wasn’t just wrong in terms of It also does something to a player psychologically when they see everybody else including people in their draft class getting paid before them.

2. At the beginning of the Gruden regime Mack held out. It’s not a good impression to hold out before ever actually meeting the coach showing up for any kind of off-season work out at all and then threaten to not play. I Understand holding out i’m just saying not the best way to start out being under new leadership lol

3. He wanted to get paid as the highest non-quarterback in the NFL(higher than people who outproduce him Like Aaron Donald Von Miller chandler Jones etc.) most of them still don’t get paid that amount and I think there’s only one defensive player that gets paid the amount he gets paid which is also a questionable contract(Joey Bosa) but even that wasn’t even until years later after the cap had already gone up naturally. It was actually around the same money that Derek Carr was making which meant he was making what was considered quarterback money at the time. You have to also consider the fact that we weren’t a winning team with him so signing him to that amount of money would’ve completely tied the cap up. Keep in mind our defense was typically just as bad when we had Mack(and believe it or not we were still struggling to get to the quarterback)
 

4. I was actually surprised that the Bears(or any other team in their situation) make a trade like that. We’re talking about two first round picks and a third round pick not for a player(because they were going to hold out if they didn’t get paid) but for the right to pay a player 24 mil a year for an edgerusher who’s never lead the NFL in Sacks before. Now that’s crazy enough, but then you factor in the fact that the Bears had a rookie head coach and a quarterback that was not established. And now we’re seeing that after a flash in the pan year, the Bears are now cutting a lot of their defensive players or trying to trade some of them. I actually heard a report that they were trying to trade Mack among others also in pursuit of Deshaun Watson. 
 

Now we look at it as raider fans who are still working on our pass rush two years later so we discount all of this other information As well as the context of the time. We can’t do that when looking at this trade

[Jeremy408]

2 hours ago, NYRaider said:

I'd be all for bringing back David Sharpe on a minimum deal. 

Me neither

[Darbsk]

5 hours ago, Mr Raider said:

Defensively even I am more pessimistic about. I thought letting Gunther go before last season was the obvious call. And there was very little bright spots on that unit last season. But I do believe Bradley is a solid DC and will put a heavier approach on the basics. More simplistic scheme to let guys play faster without so much on their plate, and will preach fundamentals on tackling and such. And I like the moves we have made on defense this off season. I don't think the defense can get much worse so at least some slight improvement should be expected. Heck if we can even just get lucky and force a bunch of turnovers even while being as bad as we were performance wise we probably win another game or two last season. 

I very much agree with this. There was just something off with Guenther and his D, like the players didn't buy in or were over thinking and confused. I've read that Bradley's scheme is quick to pick up and young players and rookies can get decent playing time. I do think we should maybe have gone after a DT more aggressively maybe via trade as I feel the outside rush isn't the biggest fault. Ngakoue will help of course but I may have gone the opposite way, getting a bunch of speed, rotation rushers or reclamation projects on the outside but a real keystone player at DT. Obviously there weren't many there in FA that could be described as that so maybe they were playing the odds.

You make a good point at the end and one I think is missed a lot when we consider the Mack trade and what he took to Chicago. I've seen people quote the sacks he got and simply say, well we have 12 sacks to replace or whatever but I don't think what is appreciated is the timing of the big plays he produced, when we most needed it he would come up with a sack, turnovers, forced fumbles etc. 2016 was the perfect example, we weren't a good defence even but Mack and a couple other guys made plays at crucial times. Hopefully Ngakoue can be a little bit of that, get a crucial strip sack in the 4th quarter or cause a tipped ball to stop a comeback. He doesn't need to have a dozen sacks but he does need to make big plays at big moments if we are to really compete.

[NYRaider]

14 minutes ago, Jeremy408 said:

1. The real problem is what Reggie McKenzie left for us in terms of salary Kaep by paying Sean Smith Crabtree Gabe Jackson and I’m sure I’m missing others before paying Khalil Mack. It wasn’t just wrong in terms of It also does something to a player psychologically when they see everybody else including people in their draft class getting paid before them.

Mack only had a $13.8M cap hit in 2018 and an $11.9M cap hit in 2019. He had a $26.6M cap hit in 2020 but we paid Trent Brown, Marcus Mariota, and Tyrell Williams a combined $41.6M in 2020 to not play. He only has a $13.8M cap hit in 2021 and we're paying Yannick $13M next season. 

[Jeremy408]

6 minutes ago, Darbsk said:

I very much agree with this. There was just something off with Guenther and his D, like the players didn't buy in or were over thinking and confused. I've read that Bradley's scheme is quick to pick up and young players and rookies can get decent playing time. I do think we should maybe have gone after a DT more aggressively maybe via trade as I feel the outside rush isn't the biggest fault. Ngakoue will help of course but I may have gone the opposite way, getting a bunch of speed, rotation rushers or reclamation projects on the outside but a real keystone player at DT. Obviously there weren't many there in FA that could be described as that so maybe they were playing the odds.

You make a good point at the end and one I think is missed a lot when we consider the Mack trade and what he took to Chicago. I've seen people quote the sacks he got and simply say, well we have 12 sacks to replace or whatever but I don't think what is appreciated is the timing of the big plays he produced, when we most needed it he would come up with a sack, turnovers, forced fumbles etc. 2016 was the perfect example, we weren't a good defence even but Mack and a couple other guys made plays at crucial times. Hopefully Ngakoue can be a little bit of that, get a crucial strip sack in the 4th quarter or cause a tipped ball to stop a comeback. He doesn't need to have a dozen sacks but he does need to make big plays at big moments if we are to really compete.

I agree with all of this. One thing I will also say is that Gus Bradley scheme isn’t really huge on investing in three techniques. I think except for one outlier which was the defensive tackle they drafted on the chargers a few years back. Usually what that defense utilizes is a Big defensive end that kicks inside on third down as a three technique(The best example of that is Michael Bennett on the Seahawks) Which is something that someone like Clelin Ferrell can directly translate to. I think Ngokue makes that possible By presenting a consistent pass rush threat from the outside to go along with Max Crosby who right now is more of a complimentary pass rusher. 

[Jeremy408]

6 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

Mack only had a $13.8M cap hit in 2018 and an $11.9M cap hit in 2019. He had a $26.6M cap hit in 2020 but we paid Trent Brown, Marcus Mariota, and Tyrell Williams a combined $41.6M in 2020 to not play. He only has a $13.8M cap hit in 2021 and we're paying Yannick $13M next season. 

Now obviously your points are good but again they’re not accounting for the situation at the time. Looking in hindsight yeah there were some guys that didn’t play but we didn’t know that they weren’t going to play when we signed them Trent Brown wasn’t known to be injury prone before we got him. Mariota was due to the fact that we now had cap space because the Went up and was no longer tied because we were able to get rid of some of those contracts.
 

Also you don’t know if Mack is down to do a deal where he doesn’t take as much upfront when he’s not taking your calls. 
 

also there’s a possibility that calls were taken and he wasn’t willing to do a deal like that for the Raiders but because the Bears traded for him he might’ve been willing to do a trade like that. 
 

Also even that contract is not a very good contract because by the time you’re paying Mack  The big money he’s already past his prime and if he regresses you can’t get rid of him without taking a very big cap hit

[drfrey13]

4 hours ago, reddevil said:

Can’t see them bringing Schwartz in. Would be a strange move having spent the off season reducing the cost of your line, only to spend the money it would take to sign him.

Just because we cut linemen making $10+ a year does not mean we should not spend any money on the line.  We gave our oline big contracts at almost every position.  If we could get Schwartz for average money it is an improvement especially if he stays on the field.  Our entire starting line as it stands right now is making less than what Hudson was going to make in 2021 and almost half of what we paid TB last year.  Last year I think our day 1 starting salaries totaled $55 million and right now they total under $13.  I think it is safe to say we can spend a little if we wanted to.  

[NYRaider]

17 minutes ago, Jeremy408 said:

Now obviously your points are good but again they’re not accounting for the situation at the time. Looking in hindsight yeah there were some guys that didn’t play but we didn’t know that they weren’t going to play when we signed them Trent Brown wasn’t known to be injury prone before we got him. Mariota was due to the fact that we now had cap space because the Went up and was no longer tied because we were able to get rid of some of those contracts.

Trent Brown missed 17 games in 3 years with San Francisco which is why they traded him and a 5th round pick to New England for a 3rd round pick. He also had weight issues dating back to his days at Florida, he was 376 pounds at the Senior Bowl which was the reason he was drafted in the 7th round. He had only made $3.5M in 4 NFL seasons before we gave him that massive contract. And as soon as he got paid he ballooned back up to a reported 400 pounds this year. The only year he was healthy and actually played an entire season at a high level was in New England. 

Tyrell Williams only had 84 catches for 1,381 yards and 9 TD in his final two seasons with the Chargers. And we gave him #1 WR money in free agency when he had never shown that he could be a high volume target. 

And the Mariota deal was one of the worst contracts in recent NFL free agency. He was the highest paid backup in the league with a $10M cap hit coming off of a season where he lost his starting job and completed less than 60% of his passes in the games that he did play. For comparison Andy Dalton signed for 1 yr/$3M deal with Dallas, Cam Newtons signed for 1 yr/$3.9M with New England, and Jameis Winston signed for 1 yr/$1.1M with New Orleans. 

[NYRaider]

14 minutes ago, drfrey13 said:

Just because we cut linemen making $10+ a year does not mean we should not spend any money on the line.  We gave our oline big contracts at almost every position.  If we could get Schwartz for average money it is an improvement especially if he stays on the field.  Our entire starting line as it stands right now is making less than what Hudson was going to make in 2021 and almost half of what we paid TB last year.  Last year I think our day 1 starting salaries totaled $55 million and right now they total under $13.  I think it is safe to say we can spend a little if we wanted to.  

Schwartz is getting $3.7M from KC either way so I doubt he'll get a huge deal in free agency. 

[Frankie2Gunz]

1 hour ago, NYRaider said:

Sheldon Rankins signs with the Jets for 2 yr/$17M. They've made a few nice defensive signings with Lawson, Rankins, Joyner (assuming he is played at safety), and Davis. 

Their defense might not be too bad with pieces like Quinnen Williams, CJ Mosley, Marcus Maye, in addition to the guys they've added. 

Right in line with what I thought his worth is.  He lands in a good spot playing alongside QW and Lawson.  If he can remain healthy he should provide good value at that price. 

[NYRaider]

4 minutes ago, Frankie2Gunz said:

Right in line with what I thought his worth is.  He lands in a good spot playing alongside QW and Lawson.  If he can remain healthy he should provide good value at that price. 

Their defense should be pretty good next season under Saleh. Lawson/Rankins/Williams on the DL, Davis/Mosley at LB, Maye/Joyner at S. They desperately need to add a CB or two but they have some pieces.