Silver Minings: Raiders get big salary cap boost with Jimmy Garoppolo’s contract off the books

After releasing Jimmy Garoppolo with a post-June 1 designation earlier this offseason, the Las Vegas Raiders are finally getting some salary cap relief from Garoppolo’s contract. With the calendar turning this weekend, the Raiders are now up to just under $34.1 million available, per Over The Cap.

That gives Las Vegas the sixth-most cap space available, trailing the New England Patriots ($45.6 million), Washington Commanders ($43.4 million), Detroit Lions ($40.5 million), Arizona Cardinals ($35.5 million) and Jacksonville Jaguars ($34.2 million).

The Raiders have a few options on how to use the extra funds. The front office could target a starting cornerback like Steven Nelson or Stephon Gilmore, give current players like Tre’von Moehrig, Malcolm Koonce or Nate Hobbs contract extensions, or roll over the cap space to next season. Granted, the latter can’t happen until the regular season is over.

So, be on the lookout for the Silver and Black to make a move soon.

Also as a part of Garoppolo’s release, the Raiders are on the hook for about $4.3 million of dead cap space this year and $12.8 million next year for him, per OTC. As things currently stand, the quarterback is the only player the team has dead money tied to in 2025.

In Other Raiders’ Links:

• Observations from OTAs: The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Vincent Bonsignore dove into four things that stood out to him from this past week’s practices.
• Brock Bowers’ story comes full circle: “We are at Diablo Valley College practicing — and we had a pretty good seven-on-seven team that we were coaching — and this eighth-grader came out onto the field,” former NFL running back Maurice Jones-Drew told The Athletic’s Vic Tafur. “He started killing these juniors and seniors. We had some kids that were going to big-time college programs. I was like, ‘Who is this dude?’”
• Mailbag: diving into the most surprising moves the Raiders made this offseason and a handful of other topics during this week’s mailbag.
• Marvin Lewis dives into why he joined Raiders: “I think just the opportunity to really assist AP,” Lewis said Wednesday via NFL.com. “From the time that I first met him and had the opportunity to coach him, and then the opportunity to kind of reunite again later on at Arizona State — so kind of was in a similar role at one point there with him there as well, being in support of him, I just have been really impressed all the time with him. Back to 2002 with the now-Commanders, I guess. So, it’s just this opportunity.”