Raiders to meet with Tyvon Branch agent this week to discuss contract

If you haven't been following this blog closely or the cap figures for their players, it might surprise you to learn that the largest cap hit this coming season by a wide margin is Tyvon Branch. He is set to figure nearly $10 million against the cap.

Even for a team which should have over $60 million to spend this offseason, that's a steep price to pay for a player who has seen just 3 full games over the past two seasons.

"That's going to be a situation we're going to have to monitor," Reggie McKenzie said Wednesday at the scouting combine. "...because the injury situation has been an issue the last couple of years. We're going to have to talk that through some more. After we get back from the combine. I'll talk to his agent while we're here, and we'll try and see where his head's at, how he feels physically and try to figure that out."

Last season it was a broken foot in week three that knocked Branch out for the season. The previous season he broke his ankle in week two of the season.

These injuries came after Branch had been a picture of health, missing just two games the previous four seasons as the Raiders' starting strong safety.

Though he hadn't made a Pro Bowl, he was considered one of the better strong safeties in the NFL. That's one of the reasons Reggie McKenzie and the new regime in Oakland restructured his contract with an extension instead of cutting him outright as they had many other players with big contracts.

If he had remained a contributor, the team may have let the contract stand as they drew it up for now.

We broached this subject last week, you can read that here.

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