Raiders Right Not to Trade for DK Metcalf After Steelers Contract Rumors

In nearly any other scenario, acquiring DK Metcalf would be a huge acquisition for a losing team after another disastrous season.

Not the Las Vegas Raiders, though.

The Raiders answered their questions at the quarterback position by trading for Geno Smith from the Seattle Seahawks Friday, acquiring the veteran signal-caller for a third-round draft pick.

The arrival of the former second-round pick in the 2013 draft may have solved the problem at one position of need but it complicated it at receiver.

While Seattle originally wanted a first- and third-round pick for Metcalf, the team ultimately settled for a second-round pick from Pittsburgh, who is set to acquire the big-play receiver.

That deal would have been doable for any team looking to add him to their roster, especially if they do not believe there is a player in the second round of this year's draft that will bring to them the explosiveness at the position that Metcalf does.

What was not as doable signing him to a new contract extension and paying him $30 million per year. The team had the cap space to do it, but did it want to allocate that kind of money to a 27-year-old receiver when it is currently in the midst of an organizational rebuild?

More importantly, did it want to pay a guy to team up with his old quarterback when the pair did not get over the hump and win anything of real substance in Seattle?

The answer to both should have been a resounding "no."

Whether it was or was not and the team just did not pull the proverbial trigger on the deal fast enough remains to be seen, but they rightly dodged another potentially disappointing trade that would have set them back in their pursuit of a return to relevancy.

The Raiders have spent the better part of the last two decades trading and signing free agents in hopes that they are quick fixes rather than cultivating a locker room of young winners through drafting and coaching. It has to stop and the team has the right coach in Pete Carroll to ensure that happens.

Remember, with Carroll in control, the Seahawks developed a team that played in consecutive Super Bowls, thanks to a core of young players that were drafted and developed into stars. Russell Wilson, Richard Sherman, Bobby Wagner, Kam Chancellor, Tyler Lockett, and Earl Thomas were all drafted and coached to be the best that they could be.

That is the culture the Raiders need to build.

After years of chasing Super Bowls with recognizable faces that were available for trade or in free agency, without asking why that may have been or putting the players in place around them to make their acquisitions worthwhile, the organization must take a page out of Carroll's book in Seattle and focus their attention on building a winner through the draft.

That means letting Metcalf, who is a dynamic wide receiver and could be the difference-maker for a contending team but not Las Vegas, play in Pittsburgh while focusing their attention on the future rather than the here and now.