The Chicago Bears Khalil Mack trade dropped like a bomb on Saturday, September 1st, 2018. Not since the blockbuster deal for Jay Cutler back in 2009 were fans shaken out of their accustomed “calm” so thoroughly. One moment the Bears are going into the regular season against Aaron Rodgers with grave concerns about their pass rush. The next they’ve locked up a 27-year old All-Pro who is one of the two best in the entire NFL.
GM Ryan Pace made his first statement a few hours after the momentous deal went down. He wanted to make sure Mack was properly locked up before doing anything. Soon the two sides agreed to a six-year contract extension worth a record $141 million. This officially locked him in as a Bear through 2024. Pace made a simple point about why he did what he did.
“Elite defensive players in their prime are rare so when we knew we had a legit shot to acquire him, we did everything we thought was necessary to get him.”
So why in the world did the Raiders trade such a star? The two generally accepted beliefs are they didn’t want to pay him the money he wanted and new head coach Jon Gruden felt he didn’t need Mack to have success. So rather than drawing out the negotiating process, Oakland cut their losses and decided to get as much in return for him as possible.
Chicago ended up drawing that lucky straw. As it turns out though, there was a specific reason the Raiders chose to deal with them.
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Raiders GM says Bears Khalil Mack trade spurred by Chicago’s losing history
Reggie McKenzie is the Raiders GM. He’s the man who drafted Mack back in 2014, adding the first genuine superstar the team had seen in ages. Unfortunately, his power in the front office was stripped away on Gruden’s arrival this past January. That meant he had limited say in what the team did about Mack’s contract and could not stop the trade when it became a reality.
So when asked what led to their discussions with Chicago, McKenzie gave a rather honest answer. One that is sure to both entertain and annoy Bears fans.
McKenzie said `more than half the league' was interested. Said Raiders wanted a trade partner `we felt, they had an opportunity to pick early.' (Obviously hoping Bears are still terrible).
— Jerry McDonald (@Jerrymcd) September 2, 2018
In other words, the Raiders feel the Bears aren’t going to be winning anytime soon even with Mack in the fold. They haven’t had a winning season since 2012 after all. They’re also in one of the toughest divisions in the NFL. There’s no way one player, even a stud like Mack can change that outlook, right? It’s just further proof that perception is the reality for a lot of people in this league, true or not.
Minor digs aside, one could sense the emotion McKenzie was feeling. It was obvious he had no desire to trade Mack. Like a good soldier he’d gone along with it, but in his heart, he felt it was a grave mistake.
Reggie McKenzie: `My whole thought process was to get Khalil in here. It was here at the end, in the final hour, that it hit. It hit hard and heavy. It was not the plan to trade him at all.'
— Jerry McDonald (@Jerrymcd) September 2, 2018
It’s not hard to see why he’d think that. Mack had 40.5 sacks his first four years in the league. He hasn’t missed a single game in his career and was Defensive Player of the Year in 2016. He was the best player on the Raiders roster and the primary reason their defense was okay instead of awful. One can just imagine how he felt when he saw the final details of the trade.
Raiders get:
- 1st round pick (2019)
- 1st round pick (2020)
- 3rd round pick (2020)
- 6th round pick (2019)
Bears get:
- Khalil Mack
- 2nd round pick (2020)
- conditional 5th round pick (2020)
Giving up Mack was bad enough, but to surrender two draft picks along with a second rounder with him? That had to sting extra hard for an experienced GM like McKenzie, knowing that Gruden was failing to maximize the value for his team in that deal. It’s rather poetic that it was happening with two former Green Bay Packers.
