Oakland Raiders general manager Mike Mayock went on the Dan Patrick Show on Friday, and the two spoke about a host of topics surrounding the team.
The General Manager for the Oakland Raiders, Mike Mayock, sat down with Dan Patrick on Friday on the Dan Patrick Show to talk about the NFL Draft and some draft prospects as well as the Antonio Brown Trade.
Mayock has done a stunning job in his first season as the team’s general manager, and even after the big free agents moves, and trade for AB, the team has a ton of draft capital left. That is Mayock’s specialty, so there is a lot to be excited about in next month’s draft.
Currently, the Raiders hold four of the first 35 picks in the 2019 NFL Draft, and there has been some speculation that could use a high pick on Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray. While that seems to be a stretch, Mayock was asked about him on Friday.
When asked about about Kyler Murray he responded with:
"At the end of the day, Kyler Murray is just intriguing. It’s become such a quarterback driven league. Every year that I was an analyst it felt like there were three or four quarterbacks that probably should’ve been late to mid first rounders for true value and they always kinda got pushed up into the top 10 or the top 5."
Dan also asked him about the backroom details of the Antonio Brown trade and the “gory details” as he put it:
"Well, I mean, Kevin Goldberg, the GM from the Steelers has been a friend for 18 years and, um, you know, he and I talked for a few weeks prior to the trade and I told him we had no interest in trading one of our first round picks and, uh, John and I have been unified on that front. So I kept saying ‘were not interested, were not interested we’re not interested’ and then the Buffalo thing fell through that Friday and uh, they reached out, one of their guys reached out to John and John reached out to me. Kevin asked ‘would you trade your two?’ (referring to the second round pick) and I said ‘no.’ But we might trade our three. I think we’d go with our three and long story short, we came to an agreement on a 3 and a 5."
The GM continues and talks about the aftermath of the trade:
"The hard part started after that to be honest with ya. I mean, the hard part was it was contingent upon getting AB signed on to a new deal. And he had set certain goals and parameters and wee had certain goals and parameters. The deal was on and off a few different times. I mean, I went to bed Friday night and the deal was off and we got up Saturday morning and to Drew Rosenhaus (Brown’s agent) credit, he knew how to put a deal together. I mean, he’s tenacious. You know, we went back and forth I can’t tell you how many times and we moved a little and they moved a little and ultimately, Antonio Brown became a Raider."
Dan then asked him about if it was possible that he would walk away from this deal and the new Gm responded:
"I think you always have to be willing to walk away from a deal. We went into it and the bottom line was, again, John and I were unified on those three first round picks. So as intriguing as AB was, we were trying to build this team a certain way. But when he became available at a different level it was kinda like listen ‘we can change how we practice, we can change what we look like on Sunday, we can change how teams have to defend us,’ and for a 3 and a 5 at that point we were ready to say ‘ok, looks like free agency’s gotta change for us .’"
The Raiders gained a player at the top of his level with a few years left with that elite level. With the Raiders signing Tyrell Williams from the Chargers, and Trent Brown from the Raiders, there is no question Carr will be expected to play at a high level this year.
The Oakland Raiders have a bright future ahead, and it seems like the Coach and the GM are on the same page as far as what they want for their team, which is always a good thing.
After all, Just Win Baby.
The Dan Patrick Show airs daily at 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. ET on AT&T AUDIENCE Network which can be found on DIRECTV Ch. 239.