The Biggest NFL Trade Deadline Winner Was... The Raiders?
It's not very often you see a team win the trade deadline and they didn't even make any trades.
I’m sure many people know why I believe the Raiders are the biggest winners here. The Las Vegas Raiders have fired head coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler. After seeing all the reactions around the league, there are no people happier right now than Raiders fans and star WR Davante Adams, and for good reason. It was easy to see this hire being a failure from the beginning just off Mcdaniels’ track record. His first stint as a head coach was back in 2009 when he got hired for the Denver Broncos position. He did a lot of controversial things like trade away franchise QB Jay Cutler and star WR Brandon Marshall. Evidently, that didn’t work out for him since he ended up being fired after just 23 months and an 11-17 record.
Now let’s take a look at what he did with the Raiders. The season before McDaniels was hired, the Raiders went 10-7 and snuck into the playoffs where they narrowly lost to the Cincinnati Bengals. After the game, Raiders players vouched for interim HC Rich Bisaccia. Evidently, they weren’t heard and McDaniels and Ziegler were hired shortly after. It seems that McDaniels and Ziegler thought they had a contending team because instead of adding through the draft and developing their own players, they went out and signed big contracts and traded their assets away. Here’s a list of players they added via free agency or trades:
Traded their 1st and 2nd picks in 2022 for star WR Davante Adams. Signed him for a five-year, $140 million deal with 68 million of it fully guaranteed.
Signed Chandler Jones to a three-year, $51 million dollar deal.
Signed Derek Carr to a three-year, $121 million dollar deal.
Signed Darren Waller to a three-year, $51 million dollar deal.
Signed Hunter Renfrow to a two-year, 32 million dollar deal.
Derek Carr would be released the following offseason and signed with the New Orleans Saints. They would replace Carr with an even worse QB in Jimmy Garoppolo who has not been good this year. Darren Waller would be traded the following offseason to the New York Giants. Chandler Jones would be released in the offseason for off-the-field reasons. Adams and Renfrow are the only two still there who signed contracts and even they aren’t being utilized correctly.
Teams need to stop hiring HCs because they have more experience and hire off of potential. Recent teams who have done that and are successful are the Eagles with Nick Sirianni, the Dolphins with Mike McDaniel, the Rams with Sean Mcvay, and the Packers with Matt LaFleur. There are other teams who hired first-time HCs like the Cardinals with Jonathon Gannon and the Colts with Shane Steichen but those are too early to tell if it is a success since it’s their first season.
Having a bad HC in the NFL can really hinder a team and can set your franchise back a lot and that’s unfortunately what we’re going to see here with the Raiders. They have two franchise players in Davante Adams and pass rusher Maxx Crosby, but how much losing are they willing to endure before they request a trade? Only time will tell. If I was running that franchise, I would hit a complete reset and start rebuilding. Starting with trading those two guys mentioned above because they can get you a lot of assets for the draft. But hey what do I know, I’m just a spectator.