The Raiders are busy little bees on the trade front Saturday, having made a big splash with the Bears by sending former Defensive Player of the Year Khalil Mack to Chicago and then following it by making another high-profile trade, landing former Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron in a deal with the Bills.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media first reported the deal, while Adam Schefter reported that Oakland gave up a fifth-round pick in order to acquire McCarron.
It is unlikely the Raiders will ease the pain of the Mack trade with the McCarron acquisition, and adding a backup quarterback is not likely to move the Raiders over/under back up to eight wins (it fell to 7.5 after the Mack trade).
We last saw McCarron, who signed with the Bills this offseason after winning a grievance against the Bengals, playing terrible in the first half against the Bears only to lead Buffalo to a pretty crazy comeback. He called the win one of the greatest experiences of his career, which features two national titles and a Week 4 preseason comeback.
AJ McCarron said that comeback was the most fun he's ever had at any level. Told his teammates beforehand they were about to go down and win and it would be legendary.
— Matthew Fairburn (@MatthewFairburn) August 31, 2018
But McCarron is an upgrade for Oakland, which previously had Connor Cook and EJ Manuel behind Derek Carr on the depth chart. Cook was cut by the Raiders on Saturday, according to Schefter.
The fun thing about Gruden acquiring just about any player, and certainly with quarterbacks, is that he spent a decade-plus covering the NFL for ESPN as one of their "Monday Night Football" analysts.
So, yes, he has said something about McCarron in the past few years and, no, it is not that complimentary.
Jon Gruden on AJ McCarron back in 2014 via https://t.co/3PP0pXBvvA:
— Ryan Talbot (@RyanTalbotBills) September 1, 2018
"I don't think he has tremendous athletic ability, his arm is not off the charts," Gruden said, "but he can play quarterback and manage an NFL system."
It's not mean, at least, although there isn't a whole lot of awful things Gruden said about many people during the course of his broadcasting career.
The Raiders hope that McCarron won't see the field, but at the very least on a rough day for the franchise they have built in some insurance for Derek Carr's health, which has not been fantastic over the past two seasons.