The Raiders have made multiple moves to bolster their linebacking corps over the past two weeks, trading for Denzel Perryman and signing K.J. Wright. They have also done some contractual maneuvering to help create cap space for these additions.
In addition to freeing up $8MM in cap room by restructuring Yannick Ngakoue‘s recently agreed-upon deal, the Raiders moved past $10MM in new space by reworking Nick Kwiatkoski‘s contract. Las Vegas created $2.31MM in cap space with its latest base salary-to-bonus adjustment, Field Yates of ESPN.com tweets.
This marks the second adjustment to Kwiatkoski’s deal this year. The team made a previous tweak in March, doing so along with its second revision to Cory Littleton‘s contract. Together, the two 2020 linebacker acquisitions’ deals have been redone four times. Kwiatkoski signed a three-year, $21MM pact in March 2020 and started a career-high 12 games last season. The Raiders added void years to the deal in March, creating some cap room, and did a more traditional restructure this week.
While the terms of Wright’s agreement are not in yet, the Raiders’ latest adjustment to the Kwiatkoski contract helped their linebacking corps add an experienced piece. The team now has Wright (140 career starts), Perryman (51), Littleton (51) and Kwiatkoski (34) on its active roster. Nicholas Morrow (29 starts) is on IR to begin the season. But this quintet gives the Raiders, whose defensive struggles followed them to Nevada last year, one of the NFL’s most experienced off-ball linebacker groups.
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