Khalil Mack Traded to Chicago: What Does it Mean?
Jhawthorn16
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The Chicago Bears decided to make the call to get Khalil Mack, the 2016 Defensive Player of the Year, this morning and reportedly gave up two first round picks to do so. The trade saw the Bears give up the 2019 and 2020 first round picks and the Raiders gave up Mack and a 2019 second round pick. The Bears announced this afternoon they will pay Mack $141 million with $90 million guaranteed. Mack becomes the league’s highest paid defensive player, and will earn $23.5 million a year for the next 6 years. Mack has 40.5 sacks in his career since 2014, and while those aren’t the best numbers in the league, PFF ranks him top 6 in defense, pass rushing and run defense. Let’s look at each team’s mentality for this trade and see why Mack was on the trade block and why both teams will benefit from this deal.
Why the Raiders traded Mack: Jon Gruden is in Oakland/Las Vegas for a decade. He signed his $100 million contract for 10 years this offseason, and while Gruden is a goofy guy, he knows what he needs to win a Super Bowl. When Gruden won his championship in Tampa Bay, he had a stellar defense and his offensive mind elevated the offense to be great, and they won a very one sided Super Bowl because of this. Gruden made a comment during training camp regarding Mack saying “Our defense has been bad with Mack here.” This showed me that Gruden doesn’t think a massive contract for one elite defender will fix the defense, so the Raiders chose to blow the defense up and start over. The Raiders now have 4 first round selections in 2 years, and I wouldn’t be shocked if all of these are used for defense. The Raiders reportedly had deals on the table from multiple teams for Mack, and the Raiders could have thought that since the Bears are the worst team in their division, and a bottom tier NFC team, those 1st round picks are going to be early in the draft. The Raiders defense is still going to be one of the worst in the NFL, with or without Mack, and because of this many experts and people like myself think the Raiders aren’t going to win many games. So, the Raiders might be able to get two top 10 selections in the upcoming 2019 NFL Draft. While the Raiders may have gave up the best pass rusher in the NFL, they could get four high value defenders to sturdy up the defense and give Gruden a chance of repeating his success that he had in Tampa Bay. If the Raiders do chose high quality defenders with these acquired selections, I’d say they won this trade because if they make this defense better, they don’t need the splash player in Mack.
Why the Bears traded for Mack: The Bears made plenty of moves in the offseason to help 2nd year quarterback Mitchell Trubisky, but a young quarterback needs two things to be able to develop properly: A run game and a defense. The Bears have Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen who form a good running back duo, and they brought back Prince Amukamara and Kyle Fuller, and added the talented pass rusher Aaron Lynch from San Francisco, plus drafting Roquan Smith who has been called by some as the “perfect linebacker for today’s NFL.” The Bears aren’t a complete team by any means, and the addition of Khalil Mack doesn’t put them in the Super Bowl conversation, but they have started putting together a defense consisting of a good pass rusher, and elite pass rusher, 2 good corners, and a good young linebacker who is good in coverage and against the run. The Bears defense got better with this trade, and the case could be made that two 1st round picks is a cheap price to pay for an elite pass rusher like Mack. If the Bears prove all the experts wrong this season and win 8 games or maybe even compete for a wildcard spot late, I would say they won the trade.
Who wins this trade: This trade can’t be judged right away because it is a player for picks, and those picks won’t mean anything until they’ve been used to draft players. Like I said, if the Raiders can use those picks to establish a good defense, I think they could win it because they haven’t been able to create a good defense with Mack on the field. But, if Mack continues dominating and the Bears prove that their team is young enough and they utilize free agency well enough to not need to draft 1st round talents, they could be seen as the winner. The way we prove this is just looking at improvements in each teams defense and looking at how good Chicago is this season, as that could affect the value of the 2019 1st round pick they gave up. The conversation for who won this trade can’t be had for 3 or 4 years once we see who Oakland gets in the draft and how that affects their defense, but overall I’d say Oakland should win this trade. Chicago has to play in a very tough division in the tougher of the 2 conferences. Chicago’s pick this year should be a top 12 pick maybe even a top 8, and the Raiders will also pick early, meaning the potential to get 2 great defenders is higher. Then in 2020’s draft, the Raiders will have 2 first rounders again and while I won’t predict that far ahead, 2 first round picks have potential to be good players if not great players. If the Raiders use all these picks for their defense, that’s 1 player for each level of the defense, which could dramatically change their defense from arguably the worst, to a top tier defense. No matter who wins, the Bears now have the best pass rusher in the NFL on their defensive line, and the Vikings will have to deal with this for the next 6 years. SKOL!