Before he became a major character in the sports equivalent of a reality show, Raiders General Manager Mike Mayock worked in commercial real estate.
So while he’s negotiating his first round of free agent deals as a rookie G.M., he has negotiated before. And he has principles he recalled that he out into play when working with wide receiver Antonio Brown on the contract which would become the richest at Brown’s position.
“I spent 18 years in commercial real estate [in New Jersey]. I was negotiating major deals every day of the week,” Mayock told Peter King of NBC’s Football Morning in America. “What I learned over the years about deal-making that applies to any business is this: If your intention is to win the deal, that is rarely going to work and it’ll piss people off.
“But if your intention is making deals and not caring about the winner or the loser, you can make a lot of deals. And both sides can walk away feeling good. And that’s what happened here.”
Mayock and agent Drew Rosenhaus hit a hurdle the Friday before the deal was completed, to the extent that Mayock said when he went to bed that night he assumed the deal was off.
“So Drew and I negotiated on Friday [March 8], but we were apart. It was not getting done. Actually, I went to bed Friday night and the deal was off the table,” Mayock said. “Our trade with Pittsburgh was contingent on us reaching a deal with Drew for Antonio, but that was very much in doubt last Friday night.
“If you want to get a deal done, Drew will stay at it with tenacity. But we woke up on Saturday without a deal. He had a position and I had a position. We had some issues with the amount of guaranteed money they wanted, and how far we were willing to go. Plus, AB wanted to be the highest-paid receiver in football. Those were issues we had to address. Those respective positions cost us a deal on Friday night.
“But what I knew was AB wanted to play for Jon Gruden. Drew and I were willing to keep chipping away.”
Together they did, and Brown got a deal with $30 million in guarantees, and Mayock got a win by acquiring one of the best players in the game.
It wasn’t a New Jersey office building or anything, but it was a significant win for a franchise that badly needs them.
