SATURDAY, 8:22am: ESPN’s Field Yates has details on Allen’s new contract (via Twitter). The safety signed a one-year deal worth $3MM, with $1.85MM in guaranteed money. The 28-year-old can earn up to $2MM in incentives, which would boost the contract’s value to $5MM.
THURSDAY, 4:08pm: Two days after cutting Nate Allen, the Raiders re-signed him, the team announced on its website. Terms of the deal are not yet disclosed.
Oakland initially signed Allen to a lucrative contract last March only to see the safety fail to live up to expectations, mostly for health reasons. The former Eagles second-rounder who’d never played fewer than 13 games in a season tore his MCL and appeared in only five in 2015, starting just three.
The Raiders signed Allen to a four-year, $23MM deal but by bringing him back at a lower rate will possess more cap room.
By cutting Allen on Tuesday, Oakland avoided being locked into Allen’s $4.9MM base salary. That figure would have become guaranteed had he been on the roster Wednesday. This deal almost certainly will cost the Raiders less in 2016.
The Raiders entered Thursday with $71MM+ worth of cap space, the most in the league.
Even after this move, the Raiders will still be in the market for safety help after Charles Woodson‘s retirement and a thin secondary responsible for the league’s 26th-ranked pass defense.
Underrated bounce-back candidate here