Richard Sherman called Reggie McKenzie after offer from 49ers and was told Raiders didn’t have the cap money

Shortly after his release from the Seahawks last week, Richard Sherman was in San Francisco being courted by the 49ers. There John Lynch gave him an offer that was pretty enticing— 3 years, $39 million. But Sherman told Lynch he was going to sleep on the decision. He also had other teams interested.

Among the calls Sherman would make was to Raiders GM Reggie McKenzie, as he told MMQB’s Peter King. Sherman was told the Raiders — who had around $15 million in cap space at that time — they couldn’t afford him.

Late in the process, when Sherman and the Niners agreed on most of the incentives in the deal, he got back to the three most interested teams. Seattle, interestingly enough, wanted the first right of refusal on any offer, and so Sherman called Seahawks GM John Schneider. Sherman said Schneider told him, “Incentives [are] a little rich for me.” Sherman called Oakland GM Reggie McKenzie, who said he wasn’t going to have the cap money to compete for him. And Sherman called Detroit coach Matt Patricia and GM Bob Quinn; incentive package too rich for Detroit’s blood.

It could be the details of his contract that McKenzie felt were more than he could pay out of this year’s cap. Figuring they had allocated X amount for whomever they signed at the position. Because technically it would seem the Raider do have the money. Especially when you consider they were about to make another $8.5 million available with the release of Sean Smith.

It could be mostly that investing $13 million in a free agent corner might hamstring them from making significant additional free agent moves and they have several needs to think about.