Oakland Raiders Salary Cap Situation Nothing They Haven't Seen Before

With yesterday's report (from PFT's Mike Florio) that the Oakland Raiders need to cut more than $22 million in contracts before March 13, full-scale panic has broken out.

The same report stated that the Raiders may have to dump "more than a few" of their top 51 players to get under the cap.

The Raiders danced around the cap last season by paying Michael Huff, Carson Palmer and Kamerion Wimbley with peanuts in comparison to this year's cap figure. Those three alone are set to make roughly $34 million in 2012. Of course, the healthy contracts of Seymour, McFadden and Kelly haven't gone anywhere, either.

However, is this year really any different than previous years?

Technically, yes.

The Raiders were only about $15 million over the cap before the deadline last June. Yet, weren't the Raiders pretty aggressive in free agency last summer?

Yes, they lost Nnamdi Asomugha, Zach Miller and Robert Gallery, but it isn't as if they couldn't have re-signed at least two of those players for what they ended up paying Stanford Routt, Kamerion Wimbley, Carson Palmer and Kevin Boss.

To that point, Routt got a more lucrative deal than the Eagles gave Asomugha.

According to the New York Post, the Raiders offered Antonio Cromartie substantially more than the $8 million per year that he got from the Jets. According to Giants owner John Mara, the Raiders "basically doubled" the Giants' offer in pursuit of Kevin Boss.

He told Mike Lupica of ESPN 1050 in New York that they “were the only team in the league that was willing to pay more than we were willing and in fact they ended up doubling the guaranteed money.”

If anything, the latest salary cap news should serve as a simple reminder that the Raiders won't be in the running for any top free agents in the coming months. Mario Williams, Marques Colston and Brandon Carr aren't coming to town.

Maybe it marks the end for guys like Henderson and Huff, but was that really unexpected? Five or six guys will restructure their contracts, and the dust will settle.

Considering the Raiders recently parted ways with fan favorites like Asomugha and Miller, this offseason may actually be rather tame.