The Raiders trading edge-rusher Khalil Mack to the Bears last September was such a controversial move—and seemed to crater in on Jon Gruden’s team in the short term—that when the deal won the “Best Transaction” award at the recent MIT Sloan Analytics Sports Conference, the team thought the award was a joke.
“[Team President] Marc [Badain] thought I was making fun of him,” Houston Rockets general manager and Sloan conference founder Daryl Morey told Vic Tafur of The Athletic (paywall) last Saturday. “I had to tell him several times that I wasn’t kidding. I guess they took a lot of heat for that.”
The Raiders dealt Mack and a second-round pick to the Bears in return for their 2019 and 2020 first-rounders and a third-rounder in 2020, which, when you add in the Amari Cooper trade to Dallas, gives Jon Gruden and general manager Mike Mayock three first-round picks in the 2019 draft. That’s a great haul for any team, but at what cost?
Morey told Tafur that it was the value of the draft picks that made the transaction such a winner. That makes sense on its face, but this Morey quote stood out to me regarding the thinking behind the award.
“We look at the process more than the result. “Getting first-round picks can be the right thing even if the picks aren’t executed well.”
Stocking up on draft picks? Sure, that’s a common call in the general analytics community. When he was the Browns’ Executive Vice President in 2016 and 2017, Sashi Brown rang up a ton of high draft picks via trade and created massive salary cap space. Like the Raiders in 2019, the Browns had three first-round picks in 2017, and turned them into edge-rusher Myles Garrett, defensive back Jabrill Peppers, and tight end David Njoku. All three players showed their abilities on the field and improvent in the 2018 season, and Peppers was a key chip to get the Giants to trade Odell Beckham, Jr.
Brown’s process worked, but if the Browns had taken unstable players with those multiple first-round picks (as they did in their 2014 draft with quarterback Johnny Manziel and cornerback Justin Gilbert, or in 2015 with defensive lineman Danny Shelton and offensive lineman Cameron Erving), what would it have meant then? Brown was fired in December, 2017, in part because the draft picks he traded away became Deshaun Watson to the Texans and Carson Wentz to the Eagles. He was also fired because the Browns had a 1-31 record during his two seasons in charge. His process was correct in the long term for several different reasons, but the short-term outcome bit him in the posterior.
Brown set the stage for Cleveland’s current success, but he wasn’t around to see it. Jon Gruden will be around to see the outcome of the Mack trade (and the Cooper trade) because he is in the second year of a 10-year, $100 million contract. But there’s no way to evaluate the merits of the Mack trade until picks executed as a result of that trade succeed or fail on their own merits.
What we do know is that in the short term, the trade was an abject disaster from a production standpoint. Mack had 11 sacks and 79 total pressures on the season with the Bears, and he was a primary reason Chicago ranked first overall in Football Outsider’s’ opponent-adjusted defensive efficiency metrics. Oakland ranked 30th in those same metrics, and their pass rush was negligible without Mack on the roster.
Production is one point. How those draft picks are coached and utilized is another. Gruden’s first first-round pick back with the Raiders was UCLA offensive tackle Kolton Miller. The Raiders’ offensive line is coached by Tom Cable, who put together a string of disastrous personnel decisions during his time in Seattle. Per Pro Football Focus, Miller, the 15th overall selection in the 2018 draft, was frequently outmatched on the field and allowed 16 sacks (the most in the NFL last season) and 65 total pressures (second in the NFL behind Houston’s Julie’n Davenport). It matters a lot who’s in charge of those draft picks, and it’s just as possible that the Raiders will blow those picks as it is that they’ll succeed with all three.
There are few better examples of this than the recent Browns. Cleveland took Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield with the first overall pick in the 2018 draft, and through the first half of the season with head coach Hue Jackson and offensive coordinator Todd Haley, Mayfield’s returns were iffy at best. It took a mid-season bloodletting in which Jackson and Haley were fired, and running backs coach Freddie Kitchens took over that offense, bonding with Mayfleld and giving him a playbook that provided positive results. The value of that first overall pick stayed the same; it was the combination of coach, player, and scheme that made it special.
The combination of process and outcome is very much like the combination of tape and stats or talent and coaching. When evaluating any player or any transaction, it’s crucial to take the combination and weigh all the evidence. Morey’s assertion that the process is more important than the result is short thinking—and unless the Raiders are able to get maximum return for those picks by way of players that can make a major difference on the field, the deal isn’t that big a deal.
In football, nothing exists in a vacuum.
