Official salary cap numbers are out and here’s where the Raiders stand

Up until recently all cap figures were working on projections. Well, now we have the official NFL cap number for this year. It’s $177,200,000; up about $10 million from last year’s figure.

With the official number set, the NFLPA factored in rollover from last year to give each team their individual cap number. The Raiders had $7,626,880 in cap rollover from last year which gives them an official cap number of $184,826,880 for this year.

Their cap spending on the top 51 players is right around $165 million, give or take a few hundred thousand depending on the source you are using. That puts the Raiders’ at approximately (drum roll, please)...

Cap space: $19 million

That’s not a lot compared to most NFL teams. Gone are the days of the Raiders being among the top ten teams in cap money available. Those were the rebuilding days. They’re sitting at 23rd in the league now in cap space; some $14 million below league average.

A solid chunk of that money will likely be used to give Khalil Mack a long term extension. There is also the rookie pool to think about. And with a top ten pick, that will be a somewhat significant figure — over $9 million according to Spotrac.com.

On the other hand, there are still players on the roster who have big contracts who would leave no dead money behind. Sean Smith leads off that list at $8.5 million. Others include Bruce Irvin, Michael Crabtree, Marshawn Lynch, and Jared Cook. Though indications are they would like to keep the latter four.

The Raiders would like to be players in free agency, but if they have a splash in them, it’s probably just one unless they want to risk saddling themselves with dead money down the road. That’s something Reggie McKenzie has been loathed to do in his tenure as Raiders GM.