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Trading Khalil Mack was always an option for the Jon Gruden’s Raiders.

Fans didn’t want to believe it and some of my peers didn’t want to acknowledge it, but the chance was always present.

If the price was right, of course.

Saturday morning, the Bears met that price. Mack is moving to Chicago in exchange for two first-round picks.

And here’s the thing: I have absolutely no problem with the trade.

Don’t get me wrong, I have concerns that come along with this massive move — so many concerns I don’t know if I can fit them all in this column — but this transaction makes a ton of sense for the Raiders.

Actually, let me be more specific: this trade makes a ton of sense for the Las Vegas Raiders.

For Raiders fans in Oakland, this Mack trade is a punch in the gut — an immediate and swift dissipation of the illusion this team is ready for serious contention in the final years (or year) of their East Bay residency.

Those fans are now on the same page as Gruden.

Here’s the cut-and-dry of the situation: Gruden didn’t believe that he could build the Raiders into a true Super Bowl-contending team by giving a defensive end “quarterback money” on top of Derek Carr’s $25 million-a-year deal.

It’s hard to argue with that logic.

The NFL salary cap might rise by $10 million annually these days — it could get to $200 million by 2020 — but the Raiders were already up against it with Mack set to make only $13.8 million this year on his fifth-year option. Giving Mack a contract that would pay him roughly $23 million a year (market value) would have left the Raiders with two players taking roughly a quarter of the team’s available money — a massive, perhaps unprecedented sum — and Gruden with little roster flexibility to make serious changes to a roster that, frankly, needs plenty of renovation over the next few years.

Lock in both Carr — impact unknown, contract well-known — and Mack long-term and you’re likely locking in a team with an eight or nine-win ceiling for the next few years. That’s good, but not great. But I don’t think Gruden signed up for that. I don’t think the people of Las Vegas would be thrilled with that, either. It’s not like there aren’t other places the entertainment dollar can go.

There are plenty of questions — fair ones — about trading Mack a few days before the season starts. Why now? The rationale behind it is simple, though unsavory: Aaron Donald re-set the market for defensive linemen on Friday with his six-year, $135 million deal, and Gruden decided that he wasn’t going to match that or Donald’s $87 million signing bonus.

That meant Mack would hold out well into the regular season or Gruden would relent on his stance that a defensive player — even an objectively great one — is not worth as much as a quarterback. That was going to be one awesome game of chicken, and I don’t know who would have won.

Gruden didn’t want to play — so he called off the game.

Again, the warning signs that something like this could happen were out there. The Raiders kept picking up the phone for teams that were clearly only calling about trading for Mack, and those the rejected offers were leaked, consequence-free. Without explicitly declaring a price, the Raiders set the market for a Mack trade. Shrewd move.

And when the Bears came in with the magic offer — two first-round picks — it didn’t take long for the Raiders to accept.

Wouldn’t you?

As I see it, there’s not a non-quarterback in the league that isn’t worth two first-round picks. Hell, some quarterbacks — perhaps even the Raiders’ — I would move for two first-round picks. Add in the money Mack was commanding and the deal to cut ties seems like a no-brainer.

Following the Mack trade, Westgate sports book dropped the Raiders’ season win total over-under by half a game. That says that turnover luck has a larger impact on the Raiders’ chances of winning than Mack in 2018.

Yes, Mack has Hall of Fame potential, but again, he’s worth a half-win per season. A competent starting quarterback is worth three (see: Garoppolo, Jimmy) and a great quarterback is worth five or six (see: Rodgers, Aaron).

And to get two top-32 (and probably a lot higher) picks is a downright great return for a player who was never going to sign a long-term deal with the Raiders. Yes, I said never. If Gruden didn’t want to give Mack his fair-market value going into this season, he certainly wouldn’t give Mack a long-term extension going into next year, when he would be even more expensive. On top of the game of chicken, the Raiders and Mack were heading to franchise tag purgatory — not a bad place to be, but not a great place either — that might have resulted in Mack leaving, without return compensation, before the Raiders left for Las Vegas.

Mack is great, but everything about the situation doesn’t seem worth the trouble for Gruden. Jon hates distractions.

Signing Mack is the Bears’ issue now, though it’ll be easier for them to manage because they have a quarterback on a rookie-scale contract.

Gruden, in turn, has four first-round picks in the next two drafts. He’ll be heading into Vegas with a team that, in theory, will be young and built in the coach’s image.

I’m not sure if the people of Nevada should be excited or scared.

Remember: Gruden was a terrible general manager the last time he had full control of a team. His poor drafting, paired with on-field micromanaging created a toxic situation in Tampa Bay, who fired him in 2009.

And make no mistake, Gruden is the Raiders’ general manager. If there was any doubt in your mind before today, it should be eliminated.

People believed this nonsense: pic.twitter.com/1Sxx7H3YM2 — Dieter Kurtenbach (@dkurtenbach) September 1, 2018

Reggie McKenzie — who was going to sign Mack this past offseason — might still hold the GM title, but he’s a highly-compensated assistant to Gruden, handling the day-to-day stuff under the coach’s direction and standing in as a scapegoat for his decisions.

Gruden says that’s not the case — maintains that he and McKenzie work alongside each other — but the truth of the matter is that Gruden says a lot of things: All of them sound good, but not all of them are true. (The sooner Raiders fans remember that, the happier they’ll be.)

No, the Mack deal seals it: this is 100 percent Gruden’s team. And it’s a team that’s in a quasi-rebuilding state.

Will the four first-round picks spark a rebirth of Raiders greatness? Perhaps — first-round picks might be the most valuable commodity in the NFL these days and the Raiders are loaded with ’em.

At the same time, that arsenal could back Gruden’s next folly. Remember, this is the guy who picked Gaines Adams No. 4 overall in 2007 and lobbied the Raiders to take Johnny Manziel over Mack in 2014. There’s far more bad than good on that GM resume — but perhaps he’s learned the error of his ways. (This year’s rookie class looks pretty good.)

So what will Gruden’s end product be?

That’ll be Las Vegas’ problem soon enough.