Looking over the Mack situation, when I was looking at the Raiders cap:
https://overthecap.com/salary-cap/oakland-raiders I am left thinking, ''No excuse not to make him the highest paid defender in the league."
Check this: We have 47 mill in cap space (estimated) next year. I say estimated because we don't know how much the cap will grow. We could add to that number by making these cuts:
Bruce Irvin
Seth Roberts
Jordy Nelson
That adds 21 mill in cap space. 69 mill in cap space with those cuts, and I didn't even include Penn.
69 million.
The reason a Reggie McKenzie makes these smart deals, and concentrates on the draft, is so that when you draft a Khalil Mack, you have the wherewithal to KEEP him. There are very, very few teams in the league with the capacity to take on a deal like this, we are in a much better cap situation than the Rams, for example.
I don't believe he's going anywhere,
I think they are content to let Donald sign, and beat that number. I have thought this for a while now. I think they are worried about overpaying. they don't want to set the market with a Suh-type deal. And making him the highest paid player by a mill a year better than Donald is NOT overpaying. 3 mill more than Donald is overpaying.
Whereas with Carr, they knew which way the QB wind was blowing, and they got out in front of it, and saved a bundle. There were a bunch of QB data points available, it was easy to predict, which we talked about here when he was signed (getting in before Stafford, Ryan, and Cousins).
We don't have that with Mack. Von Miller was the last guy, Donald and Mack are going to reset the top of the front 7 contracts.
The minute Donald signs, that's when the clock starts for me. If he signs, and we wait till after this year, and franchise him, that's a mistake, he'll only cost more.
Side note, I think we are lucky from the standpoint that I don't believe Mack is immature, or angry, or going to fire off angry tweets insulting the team. He finally spoke on Twitter recently,
https://twitter.com/52Mack_/status/1035332209979346945
Angry destroyed relationships between player and team are normally not this quiet.
This mother-effing clickbait media world we live in means we are subjected to this BASELESS speculation, and pot-stirring, and crap hot takes.
Ask yourself, when has a player as good as Mack, under team control for the next THREE YEARS, been traded? Especially one who has been such a great teammate? It would be unprecedented.