Official salary cap $7 million more than initially expected

The NFL has released the official salary cap for the 2014 season and it's even better than previously reported. Those reports were that the salary cap was to be set at $130 million. Those numbers were even better than the original projection of $126 million. This gives the Raiders a now ludicrous salary cap surplus.

The Raiders are currently sitting at an estimated $66 million to spend under the cap - by far the most in the NFL. It has long been projected the Raiders would have the most money to spend this off-season, in large part due to a great deal of dead money coming off the books which bogged them down the last couple seasons. That dead money had the team with the lowest salary being paid out to players actually on the team.

The Raiders don't have any worries as far as signing lower tier players, which they have been busy doing. Thus far they have re-signed offensive linemen Lamar Mady and Khalif Barnes and gave special teams ace, Taiwan Jones a 3-year extension.

The big re-sign deals are yet to come with Jared Veldheer and Lamarr Houston not yet re-signed or handed any kind of franchise or transition tag.

There is not only a cap ceiling, but there is also a cap floor. The salary cap floor rule states that teams must spend 89% of their available cap money average over a four-year period running from 2013 through the 2016 season. This means the Raiders should hand out some big deals but if they don't reach the 89% minimum they can make it up in the next couple years.

The amount the Raiders will have available will continue to dwindle as they re-sign their own free agents leading up to the start of free agency on March 11.

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