The Raiders made a little stir at the end of the week when they restructured Yannick Ngakoue’s contract (clearing $8 million in cap). The initial thought was that the Raiders might have another signing in the works, but the money saved by Ngakoue’s restructure still doesn’t give the Raiders a lot of breathing room in terms of salary cap.
With Ngakoue’s restructure accounted for, OverTheCap only shows the Raiders to have $1.2 million in cap room and that doesn’t account for the contract that veteran linebacker K.J. Wright is expected to sign.
The anticipated numbers of Wright’s contract have not been released, but he was thought to be seeking upwards of $5 million per year. If he gets anywhere near that amount, the Raiders may have to get creative one more time to create cap room.
Money may be tight now, but the Raiders are positioned to have more than $50 million in cap room next year.
For all the headlines the Raiders have made with bad contracts, they are only projected to have $331K in dead money next year, which figures to be one of the lowest numbers in the league. The biggest hits to their dead money this year came from Rodney Hudson ($12.1 million) and John Brown ($3.2 million), both of whom asked for their release.
twitter: @raidersbeat
So why is Richard still on the team?