Sgt. Largent":19wjkzcb said:mrt144":19wjkzcb said:A Raiders fan put it to me like this: Would you give up a winning lottery ticket for 4 lottery tickets? I know that doesn't cover the nuance of the situation at hand but it's kind of where I am at - you have a great known quantity, and it has a lot of upkeep expenses, but...you're banking on hitting at 2/4 on those picks to meet or exceed that known quantity 3 to 4 years down the road? If this was not Mack and say Frank Clark I'd take the picks no doubt but I think Mack is great and even if his salary demands are a bit outlandish, taking a proactive approach to set the table 3-4 years down the road is just too unknown. Of course I also have my doubts on Gruden lasting even 5 years let alone 10 to realize his vision so that tinges it.
I get it, but in the NFL it has more to do with whether you think you're in or out of your SB window.
Like we did last year, and the Rams are doing this year, you take chances on leveraging and compromising your cap in order to win NOW. Because that's the state of the league now, you're either building for 2-3 years down the road, or you're going for broke, there is no middle anymore.
No better way to lose your job as a GM and/or HC than to just go 7-9 or 8-8 in perpetuity.
It's obvious that Gruden and McKenzie don't think they're ready to go for broke and compete for a SB this year hamstringing their cap. My guess is they want to go into Vegas as strong as possible having their cap right and getting the best young nucleus as possible.
I think you're on the money with the expectations being more dichotomous but I think it's kind of a hilarious tragedy that several of the teams that go down the path of building for the future on a longer timeline wind up treading water in that mediocre zone or jettisoning the architects of that rebuild 2 to 3 years in just to repeat the process and the mantra of 'for the future'.
I think I have PTSD from Sam Hinkie and the Sixers even as a passive bystander with no rooting interest. It has given rise to the notion that you, the fan, simply need more patience, endless patience, to suffer through some baffling moves and awful games to get a chance to seize the ring at some nebulous point in the future. If the team sucks, it's by design and screw you for not trusting in the apparatus to deliver the goods. Like I said, I'm not even a Sixers fan but that whole thing rubbed me wrong where even years later now, the Sixers are better than the darkest days of Hinkie's tenure but they're not appreciably closer to realizing the promised end goal that seemingly justified the whole detour. (52 wins this past season in the East is great, sure, but cmon, the West's 6th best team would probably smoke them heads up, not to even invoke the Dubs or Rockets or whoever else. And were those previous seasons worth a semi bounce now?)
Not that I'm looking out for the Raiders interests here but man, it's going to be funny and sad at the same time if 5 years from now the Raiders have moved on from Gruden, or Gruden realizes he loves the booth more and they weren't even in the wildcard hunt during his tenure.