Yeah, this deal is definitely finished. Done. Over.
While conspiracy theories are nice to think about, I think they're just a way to try to avoid brute facts.
Mike Vrabel is my favorite player, and I think we should have absorbed his cap hit. However, Kansas City was the only willing taker for both players, so we unloaded him there.
Personally, I think we got screwed. But these are just the brute facts. We needed to clear cap space and we did. There are no counter or side deals, what's done is done (I'm not saying we couldn't acquire Peppers, but Peppers wasn't part of any mega-trade-agreement).