NFL.com's Jason La Canfora has reported that a source has told him that if Raiders' LB Kamerion Wimbley does not agree to restructure his deal, the team will cut him before the start of the season.  The team would still owe Wimbley $6.5 million guaranteed but would save the remaining $4.5 million in his salary this season in addition to avoiding a trigger in his deal that would guarantee a future amount of $19 million in subsequent years of his contract.

The La Canfora report doesn't explicitly state that Wimbley would have to take a pay cut, but it certainly seems likely.  Profootballtalk.com certainly is taking the tact that it's a paycut in their coverage of the report.  The restructuring would also serve to spread out Wimbley's cap hit.  Wimbley has reportedly refused to take a pay cut so this may mean that he will hit the free agent market later this month.

Wimbley has been with the Raiders since March of 2010 when the Raiders traded for him from the Browns in exchange for a 3rd round pick in the 2010 draft.  He was moved to Strongside Linebacker where he has flourished, especially in a pass rushing role.  He is the Raiders best pass rush option currently on the roster.  He has 16 sacks in two seasons with the Raiders.

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UPDATED

Since the end of the season, Raiders QB Carson Palmer has not given any interviews and so there were many questions out there about how he felt about the changes in the coaching staff, reflecting on the trade and how he feels about the next year.  In a short interview today on NFL Sirius radio, Palmer weighed in on a few questions.

Specifically, he answered questions about the pressures he feels to justify the blockbuster trade that brought him to Oakland mid-season last year and about the wide receiving corps that Oakland currently has under contract.  Unsurprisingly he raved about rookie Denarius Moore, calling him a "big time receiver in the making."

As has been widely reported at this time, the Raiders are well over the 2012 salary cap.  It was initially posited that the team was $11 million over the cap or so but according to Profootballtalk.com, the number is actually closer to $25 Million over the projected salary cap of approximately $120 million.

TFDS has looked at the Raiders biggest area of need already this offseason.  We've also discussed the franchise tag and the chance or lack thereof that the Raiders will avail themselves of that option.  We will now look at the Raiders' upcoming free agents and the likelihood of each player being re-signed.

Here are the players whose contracts are ending soon:

Yes, the Super Bowl is over with the NY Giants once again hoisting the championship trophy (Insert "boo" sound here). But as loyal Raider fans, we wore our jerseys proudly and watched the game almost rooting (I said ALMOST rooting) for the Giants to win over the dreaded Patriots. Damn you Tom Brady and damn that "tuck" rule. There's a word that rhymes with tuck that always comes to mind when we think about that infamous "tuck" rule.

In an interview on NFL Network, Raiders' owner Mark Davis hinted there will be further organizational changes past the football related changes that have swept the organization for the past month.

He addressed the fact that Al Davis was known for controlling all aspects of the organization stating, "When he came to the Raiders in 1963, there were maybe six coaches, eight coaches, maybe four front-office people. Scouts like Ron Wolf and those guys. They did it on a shoestring."

He continued, ""The business part really wasn't there. It was all football. Just win. Over the years, it just grew and grew and grew, and I think the size of the league and the size of the organization and the different things you had to deal with, media and all those things, kind of dwarfed the capabilities of the organization. Instead of a clean start with the organization, there's been a lot of plugging holes."

Amid all the coach speak to today's press conference (try this one, "We'll see, after we go through free agency, after we go through the draft, which grouping gives us the best chance to be successful. I would expect that we'll be very multiple in that regard"), Raider's Head Coach Dennis Allen dropped some interesting nuggets if we dig deeply enough.

First, if I were OLB/DE Kamerion Wimbley or FS Michael Huff, I wouldn't get too optimistic about my prospects. In response to a question directly about those to players and their high contract numbers Allen gave this response, "Right now, with all those guys, we're looking at all our options and what we have to do from a financial standpoint to make sure we put ourselves in the best position to get the best players out there and be on our final 53-man roster. So between Reggie and myself, we're working through all those scenarios right now." That is certainly not, as they say, a ringing endorsement.