Reggie McKenzie: What Khalil Mack was demanding wasn’t going to work

It was clear to the Raiders early on in Khalil Mack‘s holdout that he wanted far more money than the Raiders wanted to pay him.
That’s the word from Raiders General Manager Reggie McKenzie, who said after trading Mack to the Bears that the Raiders could tell early on that Mack was going to demand a contract the Raiders weren’t prepared to deliver on.
“All of us, [coach Jon Gruden], myself, everybody in the organization wanted Khalil to be a Raider,” McKenzie said.
“We presented him with an offer, and we got that counter back, talked about it with [Mack’s agent, Joel Segal].
What they were demanding, it just wasn’t going to work.” What Mack was demanding was to be the highest-paid non-quarterback in the NFL, and that’s exactly what the Bears made him.
The teams also exchanged draft picks, with the Raiders getting the Bears’ first-round picks in 2019 and 2020.
Now the Raiders need to make those picks work.