With Raiders fans taking aim at old/new coach Jon Gruden

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Tahir Whitehead Jersey , still fairly new owner Mark Davis decided to grant an interview aimed at shifting accountability from someone who (in theory) can be fired to someone who can’t be.Davis, in a conversation with Paul Gutierrez of ESPN.com, addressed the controversial decisions to trade pass rusher Khalil Mack and receiver Amari Cooper. The message from Davis: Don’t blame Gruden, blame me.Davis said that the team initially tried to sign Mack to an extension in 2017, after making quarterback Derek Carr the highest paid (for a brief time) player in the league. The Raiders offered, according to Davis, a package that would have made Mack the highest paid (also possibly for a brief time) player in the league. Mack and his agent, Joel Segal, passed.“[T]hey decided they didn’t want to do it that early,” Davis told Gutierrez. “They would wait.”So wait they did. Then came the unofficial hiring of Jon Gruden, the firing of Jack Del Rio, the official hiring of Gruden, and a single conversation in January between Gruden and Mack.“That’s the last time Jon and Khalil talked,” Davis said.As previously explained here and elsewhere, the Raiders tried in February to extend Mack. The two sides weren’t able to reach an accord. At that point, as PFT has heard it, the Raiders decided to spend their money on other players Foster Moreau Oakland Raiders Jersey , leaving them with a budget that provided only for the $13.846 million that Mack was due to make under the fifth year of his rookie deal.“From that point on, [Mack] would not talk to anyone in our organization,” Davis said. “Not [G.M.] Reggie [McKenzie], not Jon, not anybody.”Davis insists that Gruden wanted to keep Mack around.“Jon wanted him,” Davis said. “Everybody thinks that Jon’s the one who wanted to get rid of him. Jon wanted him badly. Why wouldn’t you want this guy? Reggie wanted him badly. And I wanted him badly, too. But, if in fact we were going to give the type of money that we were going to give to him, and we had Derek on that type of a [contract], how were we going to go ahead and build this football team, with all the holes that we had?”But they could have done it, if they’d wanted to do it. The salary cap keeps going up, and increases in the quarterback market already has relegated Carr’s deal to second-tier status. The Raiders could have found a way to pay Mack, sooner or later.The Raiders opted for later, squatting on Mack during the final year of his rookie deal and assuming that he’d show up and play. Davis confirmed that this was indeed the approach.“My thought was, ‘Listen, he signed a five-year contract Foster Moreau Oakland Raiders Jersey , if he’s the type of guy that I think he is, he’s going to honor that contract,'” Davis said. “And he’s going to come in and play for the $13 million for this year and then we’ll work for him during the year and get it. Word came back through certain players that know him and talk to him and know me as well, that he wasn’t going to come in. He was going to do the Le'Veon Bell [holdout]. At that point, I said, ‘Eff it. The guy hasn’t talked to anybody. We’ve got to do something.'”Davis mentioned a second time the concept of Mack “honoring” the fifth year of his contract. But the reality continues to be that there are two types of contracts that apply to NFL players: Their individual contract with the team, and the broader contract that governs the relationship between all players and the league.聽Under the latter contract, Mack and all players have rights. Mack exercised those rights. And the Raiders blinked, once they knew that the Rams had given defensive tackle Aaron Donald $22.5 million per year, and that the Raiders would never do the same for Mack.So, basically, Mack leveraged his rights under the labor contract, even if it technically meant not “honoring” his obligations under his specific employment contract with the Raiders.After taking on Mack and losing badly, Davis decided he didn’t want to go 0-2 by taking on Cooper, who also is represented by Segal, and experiencing the same outcome.“It might not have been the right decision, but the other point to this whole thing is that Segal is also the agent for Amari Cooper Foster Moreau Jersey 2019 ,” Davis said. “And we knew the same situation was coming up the next year. It wasn’t just one layer of chess; it was two layers of chess.”Call it chess or checkers or chicken, the Raiders lost. And now Davis admits it. Which sends a dangerous message to all other players and agents who will be negotiating with the Raiders in the coming year.Bottom line? You can play hardball with the Raiders, and you can win. Big. So what prompted the recent “I’m watching you, Focker” tweet from Raiders quarterback Derek Carr? He possibly was reacting to a tweet from earlier in the day, posted on the team’s official account.On Monday, the team worked out former Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray in Dallas, Hall of Fame Raiders receiver Tim Brown showed up, and he posed for a photo with Murray.“Just Heisman stuff,” the message with the photo declares, a reference to the fact that both Brown and Murray won the Heisman Trophy during their college careers.While it’s entirely possible that the Raiders are simply doing their due diligence with no intent to draft Murray or Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins, it’s also possible that coach Jon Gruden is always looking to upgrade the quarterback position. Chris Simms, who once played for Gruden, understands the dynamic — and Simms believes that Carr has reason to be concerned.