ESPN's Adam Schefter dropped this little nugget upon us today:
A little-known rule prevented the Raiders from re-signing Huff this past season, as much as they would have liked to, according to an NFL source.
Apparently since Huff's salary rose 30 percent from 2009 to 2010 he was not able to sign an extension with the Raiders. That makes two players the Raiders couldn't sign to extensions because of 30 percent rules. The crazy and insane thing is this is a different 30 percent rule then the one that voided Kamerion Wimbley's extension.
The curious case of the Huff contract gets curiouser. Huff, who has the same agent as Nnamdi, had a Nnamdi type of clause in his contract. I am just going to paste Williamson here so I don't have to rephrase this boring contract non-sense concerning a player I no longer care about.
Huff's contract says that if the Raiders tendered him as a restricted free agent, he must be paid 110 percent more than last year's salary, which would put Huff's salary in 2011 at $6.325 million -- plus a $200,000 Pro Bowl incentive.
Now, whenever football resumes, Huff either will become an unrestricted free agent, able to go to the highest bidder, or Oakland must pay him $6.325 million to retain his services for 2011.
It's a good thing Huff had this clause in his contract, because the Raiders haven't paid him enough for all of his contributions during his career.
Unlike the clause in Nnamdi's contract or the rule that resulted in Wimbley being ridiculously over paid, I am happy for this turn of events. While I wouldn't mind Huff coming back on a backup sized contract I don't think that was ever going to happen. It is time for Huff to start whiffing on open field tackles and being late in coverage elsewhere.