Few believe the Raiders did the right thing by trading Khalil Mack last September.

The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference nevertheless recognized the trade as being the best of the year in all professional sports.鈥淚 think it was the only award we got last year Derrick Johnson Jersey ,” Raiders coach Jon Gruden tells Peter King of .It remains a hollow prize, with most non-MIT-types realizing that the purpose of the draft is to turn lottery tickets into rare jackpots, and then to keep the rare jackpots in place without succumbing to the allure of trading them for more lottery tickets. Gruden now justifies the decision not to pay Mack by pointing to this year’s rash of acquisitions.鈥淚f we did come up with the money to make the [Mack] contract happen last year, we wouldn鈥檛 have any of these men we鈥檙e talking about now,鈥?Gruden tells King. 鈥淲e would not have [tackle] Trent Brown. We would not have [receiver] Antonio Brown. We wouldn鈥檛 have [safety] Lamarcus Joyner. We wouldn鈥檛 have [linebacker] Vontaze Burfict and we wouldn鈥檛 have [receiver] Tyrell Williams. And we wouldn鈥檛 have the three first-rounders that we鈥檙e talking about.”But that’s not accurate. First, teams can do a lot more with the cap than they claim that they can do. While it’s possible that the Raiders were limited more by cash concerns, it’s not as hard as it used to be to create cap space to permit moves that a team wants to make — especially with the cap going by up more than $10 million every year.Second, as it relates to Mack, the Raiders ended up backed against a financial wall because they incorrectly assumed that Mack would play out his fifth-year option in 2018, and they stubbornly refused to give him a new deal. If they’d realized that he wasn’t going to show up without that new deal, and if they’d paid him before Aaron Donald broke the bank on the Friday of Labor Day weekend Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie Jersey , the Raiders surely could have gotten Mack for less than what the Bears paid.And let’s consider what the Bears paid. At $23.5 million per year, they set a new high-water mark for defensive players even while giving up multiple draft picks to get him. If they could have gotten Mack on the open market, they would have paid somewhere between $25 million and $30 million per year for Mack.The Raiders, if they’d properly handled Mack a year ago at this time, likely could have had him for $20 million per year, and maybe even a little less than that. (Before Donald got to $22.5 million annually, the highest-paid defensive player was Von Miller, at just over $19 million per year.) That extra $3.5 million per year would have helped pay for their 2019 free agents.Would they have signed all of them? Probably not. But with Antonio Brown essentially replacing receiver Amari Cooper‘s current and future cap and cash burden, the question becomes whether it makes more sense to have Khalil Mack or Trent Brown, Lamarcus Joyner, Vontaze Burfict Marshawn Lynch Jersey , and Tyrell Williams. Even if one or more of those guys could have been signed if Mack hadn’t been traded, it doesn’t take a degree from MIT to conclude that Mack can do far more to impact games and deliver victories than those other four players combined.The goal when drafting players continues to be finding potential Hall of Famers. When a team finds those potential Hall of Famers, the challenge becomes finding a way to keep them around, for a second contract, a third, and maybe a fourth.To truly justify the trade, the Raiders need to get a future Hall of Famer with one of the first-rounders acquired for Mack. If they do, they need to figure out how to keep him. Six days until the draft. This is fine. Everything’s fine."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Raiders StoriesScheduleRosterStatsYahoo Raiders NewsYahoo Raiders Team PageYahoo Raiders ReportYahoo Raiders Depth ChartYahoo Raiders TransactionsYahoo Raiders PhotosOdds About Masthead Community Guidelines StubHub 鉁昍eports of Raiders scouts sent home, Gruden and Mayock ‘don’t know who to trust’New,288commentsSix days until the draft. This is fine. Everything’s fine.PDTShareTweetShareShareReports of Raiders scouts sent home, Gruden and Mayock ‘don’t know who to trust’Kirby Lee-USA TODAY SportsWe are less than a week from the start of the 2019 draft and there are reports of some pretty serious turmoil at Raiders headquarters in Alameda. According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport Jared Cook Jersey , the entire scouting department has been sent home and won’t return for the draft.“They don’t know who to trust” is not a good statement. Especially after reports last year of Gruden having his own scouts and a different draft board than former GM Reggie McKenzie and his scouting department. A report Gruden did not deny outright, but downplayed it saying he has a couple guys who work for the coaches but “it doesn’t intersect with the scouting, it’s a completely different agenda.”That reported divide was thought to have been put in the past with Reggie McKenzie’s firing late last season. Though many in his scouting department remain with the team, including his brother Raleigh McKenzie.Perhaps more details on this will be revealed at some point, but regardless, this is not a positive development with less than a week until the draft with Mike Mayock in his first ever draft as an NFL GM.Update: While not knowing “who to trust” is never a good thing in a draft prep situation, it may not be unusual to clear out the scouting staff at this point.Follow @LeviDamien