Dumping Aldon Smith now is an empty gesture by Raiders

The Raiders dumped Aldon Smith Monday, a mostly cosmetic move that would have been moot on March 14 when the troubled linebacker would be an unrestricted free agent.

Mind you, Smith hasn’t been involved with the team since 2015 other than the ability to avail himself of support staff as he’s served an indefinite suspension for a list of serious transgressions.

Yet let’s not paint the Raiders as paragons of virtue for a symbolic release a day after he was sought by San Francisco police in a domestic violence case and instead reportedly checked himself into rehab.

This is not a defense of Aldon Smith, who has deserved the punishment meted out by the NFL. The Raiders gambled by signing Smith after he was released by the 49ers, and it was a gamble that didn’t pay off.

The first time Smith met the media in the Raiders’ locker room, he didn’t come off as a guy who was trying to put his mistakes behind him. He instead exuded the petulance of someone who thought he’d been done wrong by the 49ers.

In the end, the fallout for the Raiders, as opposed to the 49ers, was minimal. Smith played in nine games with seven starts. The Raiders paid next to nothing and got next to nothing, and Smith’s presence on a suspended list didn’t exactly rock the foundation of the franchise. They went from a loser to a winner to a loser since Smith signed the first time and he had nothing to do with any of it.

Smith wasn’t around, wasn’t part of the team and was involved in the league’s own version of due process.

Nearly a year ago, Smith remained property of the Raiders after being detained for public intoxication with the driver arrested for driving under the influence, a transgression which virtually assured he would remain suspended until his contract expired.

If the Raiders didn’t release Smith at that point, then why do it now? He’d have been gone soon enough without having to pile on. No sense in acting as if you’re taking the high road after allowing Smith to remain on the fringe because of his once prodigious talent.

Right or wrong, Smith was repeatedly been given extra chances, and that’s the way the NFL (and pretty much every other sport) works and has always worked.

Lawrence Taylor didn’t go to the Hall of Fame because he was a good guy. He was kept on the field and enabled by the New York Giants and Bill Parcells because he was a once-in-a-lifetime talent.

John Matuszak is a beloved Raider who had a taste for booze and firearms, and Al Davis for a long time was known for taking chances on wayward players. In many of those instances, trouble and legal issues were buried because there was no social media to jump-start public opinion.

As far has Smith goes, his Raiders career had little in the way of a ripple effect. There were never any banners, organized protests or anything of the sort to get him off the roster. He was out sight, out of mind to most of the fan base.

That doesn’t include a Twitter fringe which isn’t rooted in reality and can’t fathom why Smith was never reinstated in the first place, blissfully ignoring the rap sheet. But a fringe is all it is.

Smith was the least of the Raiders’ concerns. The team is headed for Las Vegas within the next couple of years. Quarterback Derek Carr is looking for a bounce back season after signing a $125 million contract.

When fans clamored for cornerback Sean Smith to be released, it wasn’t because he was arrested in July of 2017 for an alleged assault on his sister’s boyfriend. It was because receivers kept running free in the secondary.

And if Sean Smith is released before the start of the new league year on March 14, it will be because they don’t want to pay him $8.25 million and not because of an impending trial.

The Raiders stood behind the late Darrell Russell for years because of his talent. Josh Gordon keeps getting chances with the Cleveland Browns because of his talent.

The Raiders until Monday were riding the Aldon Smith saga to its conclusion. Cutting him nine days before free agency begins is no more than a sanctimonious transaction that in reality means nothing.

It was too late for the high road, and any “statement” made by dumping him now is hypocrisy.