This week was the time of reckoning. With Eddie Vanderdoes on the Physically Unable to Perform list Cheap Customized Oakland Raiders Jerseys , the team had to make a decision whether to activate him or shut him down for the remainder of the season. They chose the latter.“I believe going to put Eddie on season ending injured reserver. We had a chance to look at him for a couple weeks and although he has made progress, he’s had a couple injuries to his knee in his background, and we wanted to make sure that we give him the proper time to get ready. We’re going to be very precautionary with him, so I believe his season will end unfortunately, but I think it’s the right thing to do for him and his future.”Vanderdoes was the team’s third round pick in the 2017 draft. He appeared in all 16 games as a rookie, starting 13 games. In the season finale in Las Angeles against the Chargers, he suffered a tear in his ACL which figured to carry a recovery time of several months.The Raiders expected to have the big defensive tackle back in camp, but he suffered a setback and remained on the PUP list into the regular season which meant he would be out at least 8 weeks. From there the team had three weeks to make a decision. Heading into week 11, that time is now. And with no great benefit to rushing him back, the decision was made to push his return to 2019.Follow @LeviDamienConflicting Khalil Mack trade rumors show sad state of sports journalism ***An apology has been issued for this article. Read that here***The Khalil Mack holdout has been going on for months now. Mack did not report to mandatory minicamp, voluntary minicamp Womens Kolton Miller Jersey , OTAs, training camp, any preseason games or the Raiders 4th of July barbecue. However, contracts take time, especially for someone like Mack who is arguably the best defensive player in football and certainly the best player in the AFC West.But for the last few weeks we’ve heard countless rumors about Khalil Mack being traded. Where did they come from? Do they have any validity?Let’s start with Ground Zero.There had been a few rumblings, mostly from New York area football blogs, that the Jets were looking to add an edge rusher, namely Khalil Mack. And then there was this article from Bleacher Report that said,The fact that this comes from the den of scum and villainy known as Bleacher Report should tell you all you need to know about its validity, not to mention the fact that the story is “an unnamed exec from an unnamed team has a feeling”. I had a feeling once, but it turned out I had too many burritos.And there was this:Okay first of all http://www.oaklandraidersteamonline.com … all-jersey , who the fuck is Eric Galko? Nobody had ever heard of him or his little scouting company before this tweet made the rounds, but it provides scouting services and consulting. They’re not a news outlet. This was really where things started to get crazy. Every football blog in existence then went off the deep end speculating about how their team could get Khalil Mack. Possible suitors, if you believe that there are any, include the Packers, Bears, Jets, Bills, Pottsville Maroons, New York Yankees and CSKA Moscow.Three days ago, Yahoo! Sports came out with this article about the Mack trade saga. It includes the following passage:And much of this came after an August 21 report from Sports Illustrated that quoted Albert Breer, saying:Most recently Authentic Marcus Gilchrist Jersey , MMQB’s Albert Breer broke down the idea of a Mack trade and did so as bluntly as possible. According to Breer, inquiries about acquiring the 2016 Defensive Player of the year “have been quickly met with a no.”Breer’s insight on the situation goes beyond just the fact that the Raiders aren’t interested in moving Mack currently, though. He also lays out an interesting scenario for any potential suitor, which includes not only giving up a massive amount to acquire him but then the huge contract a team would have to lay out immediately after.And Ian Rappaport went on the Rich Eisen Show this week and made it very clear the Raiders are not interested in trading away Mack.Also this week, this little foray into seeing how the sausage is made in the wild, wacky world of sports journalism officially became a joke:You see folks, ever since you, the consumer, stopped actually paying for sports journalism, it has become something completely degenerate and foul. Modern sports (and regular) journalism is ad-based, which means the more people who click on your page Womens Mike Nugent Jersey , the more money you make. The ad doesn’t care if what you wrote is true or not, it only wants more readers. And the best way to get readers is to tell them what their cognitive bias wants to read about. Happy lies sell far better than inconvenient truths. It’s known as clickbait, and I will have none of it.The bottom line here is that there’s been a ton of speculation, none of which is based on any sort of verifiable truth or reasonable conclusions from any evidence whatsoever, that teams are lining up to trade for Khalil Mack. There is no evidence of any kind from any source that the Raiders are interested in any way in trading Mack, and in fact trading for him and signing him to the contract he deserves would be so cost-prohibitive that there are few teams for whom such a move makes sense. But that doesn’t stop journalists with questionable motives from spreading a false narrative.UPDATE: In the hours since this article was posted, an article went up on NFL.com which completely encapsulates the issues the article speaks about.The headline reads, “Raiders want at least two first-round picks for Mack”.The actual story is... about something else. Seriously, read the headline and then read the actual story. And consider the fact that many people will just read the headline and not the story, and draw conclusions from that.