Cover / Artwork » It didn’t take Mike Mayock long to get the hang of bein

The weekend before free agency was set to begin he helped facilitate a blockbuster trade that brought in All-Pro wide..."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Raiders StoriesScheduleRosterStatsYahoo Raiders NewsYahoo Raiders Team PageYahoo Raiders ReportYahoo Raiders Depth ChartYahoo Raiders TransactionsYahoo Raiders PhotosOdds About Masthead Community Guidelines StubHub 鉁昉ro Football Focus analyst sees ‘masterful’ job by Mike Mayock in first free agency with RaidersNew Hunter Renfrow Jersey 2019 ,252commentsPDTShareTweetShareSharePro Football Focus analyst sees ‘masterful’ job by Mike Mayock in first free agency with RaidersTrevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY SportsIt didn’t take Mike Mayock long to get the hang of being a general manager.The weekend before free agency was set to begin he helped facilitate a blockbuster trade that brought in All-Pro wide receiver Antonio Brown, for only a third and fifth round pick in return.He followed that up just minutes into the free agent negotiating period by locking up the top tackle in free agency, Trent Brown.A day later, safety/cornerback hybrid Lamarcus Joyner was added to the defense at a bargain compared to some of the contracts that were handed out to other players at his position.And to top it off Derek Carr got another new toy in Tyrell Williams, who was viewed as the top wide receiver available.Sprinkle in some of the less heralded moves like re-signing Johnathan Hankins and Erik Harris, and bringing in veterans Vontaze Burfict, Brandon Marshall, and Isaiah Crowell.With the draft still to come, Mayock has the opportunity to add a couple more starters to the lineup with four picks in the top 35.Arguably, one of the worst rosters in the league last year has the looks of a much more competitive team in 2019.While the talent has improved, where Mayock — who credits the work of contract specialist Tom Delaney — has really excelled is with his ability to create contracts that are attractive to free agents and beneficial to the team. On the surface, Trent Brown’s record contract appears to be an absurd amount of money for a guy who with the exception of last season has been an average tackle in the league. And it is a lot of money, especially after the first season. After 2020, however, his contract offers the Raiders flexibility to get out of it with zero dead cap.This is a common theme among the contracts the Raiders signed this offseason. All of the contracts of the big four players (Brown, Brown, Williams, Joyner) that the Raiders signed can be taken off the books or cut without any dead money after the 2020 season. And Williams and Joyner can be let go after the 2019 season. I recently interviewed Austin Gayle, senior content and strategy analyst at Pro Football Focus for my podcast, “Just Pod Baby”. Here is what he had to say about the job Mayock has done.“I think Mike Mayock has done a masterful job,” said Gayle. “Mike Mayock knows the structure of this roster maybe isn’t ready to compete for a Super Bowl in the next couple years . They need to sign veterans to add talent but they do not want to commit long term money to players when they don’t know where the roster will be when the quarterback question gets solved and when they’re able to see what these five first round draft picks are able to do.”The exciting part about this is that Mayock was hired for his expertise as a talent evaluator and not his ability to wheel and deal with agents like a used car salesman.If his first free agency is a sign of things to come for Mike Mayock’s tenure as general manager then the Raiders future is in good hands. On Friday, the Raiders took the highly unusual step of clearing the building of most scouts Cheap Hunter Renfrow Jersey , telling them to stay home until after the draft. On Monday, the Raiders floated an excuse for sending employees home with pay.According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Media, the Raiders may be planning a”surprise” pick with the fourth overall selection, necessitating complete and total secrecy.That’s fine (actually, it’s won’t be fine if they opt for a “surprise” who becomes a bust), but a normally functioning football operation can achieve and maintain the necessary level of secrecy without sending people home. Most NFL front offices operate on a strictly need-to-know basis, with scouts who aren’t involved in setting the draft board knowing nothing about its contents. It’s a simple and easy application of the Patriots’ “do your job” mantra, where if it’s not critical to an employee’s job to know what the organization will do during the draft, the employee never knows that information.In New England, the area scouts who have no need to know the manner in which coach Bill Belichick ranks the players are (wait for it) instead working on other things that are central to their jobs, whether it’s gathering information about next year’s prospects or being available to answer specific questions or to handle specific projects relating to the work they’ve done for the current draft. The Raiders have consciously surrendered the benefit of these employees’ efforts, due to a vague and perhaps irrational fear that one of them will spill the beans about something that they shouldn’t even know in the first place.And here’s a fair question, given the manner in which a football operation should normally operate: Are the Raiders protecting coach Jon Gruden from himself? Specifically, is Gruden so impulsive and insecure that he can’t be trusted to refrain from bouncing his ideas about potential first-round picks off of scouts who in turn can’t be trusted to keep their own mouths shut?Trust. It’s amazing to think that the Raiders suddenly can’t trust scouts that they necessarily have trusted for months. Trusted to do good work. Trusted to be discreet regarding anything they hear regarding the team’s plans. Trusted to show full loyalty to the entity who pays their salaries.Either the Raiders suddenly decided that they can’t trust the scouts or they never trusted them in the first place, but did nothing about it until now. Neither explanation is satisfactory, and both make the Raiders look bad.Indeed, the Raiders are hardly the first football operation to have a secret that they didn’t want to be compromised. But they are the first (at least in recent years) to pay people to not show up for work due to fears that someone who doesn’t need to know the secret may find out about it, and may blab.It’s up to the leaders of the organization to ensure that people who aren’t trustworthy not be trusted with sensitive information. Which brings me back to the notion that the Raiders are essentially protecting Gruden from himself, by ensuring that Gruden doesn’t disclose the plans that Gruden and G.M. Mike Mayock are putting together for their three first-round picks, in an effort to feel more confident as Gruden embarks on a draft that will be critical to the manner in which his second stint with the Raiders ultimately goes.