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It’s officially unofficial that Richard Seymour’s phat contract has been voided. Without confirmation from the Raiders we’re just waiting for the free agency window to open for the word to come down from high but enough reports confirm the inevitable has already occurred.

Interestingly enough Steve Corkran today suggested that the move might have come a dollar short and a day late. In a post on his Inside The Oakland Raiders Blog Corkran ponders if Reggie McKenzie might have been better served serving ties one year ago when the out-of-whack contract shredding party was in full swing.

His biggest impact is going to be on this year’s salary cap, with Seymour counting for almost $14 million in so-called “dead money.” Put another way, almost one-eighth of their $121 million salary cap in 2013 is going to come from Seymour’s voided contract.

The Raiders would have been better off absorbing the blow of severing ties with Seymour last season.

To be fair McKenzie was in a bad spot. He needed to get his team under the cap with enough room to make moves including re-signing the likes of Tyvon Branch, inking a few free agents and getting the new draft class under contract. Cutting Seymour might have avoided this problem now but there is no doubt it would have hurt the team in the immediate.

McKenzie’s Magic 8-Ball couldn’t have warned him Seymour would struggle through an injury plagued season in which his presence would have made no difference in a dismal defense. Certainly the notion of parting ways with Seymour had to cross McKenzie’s mind but severing ties with a team captain and perennial Pro Bowler wouldn’t have helped convince Raider Nation the new GM was out to just win, baby.

Whatever, it’s all a moot point now.

To quote Jim Harbaugh: “The would’ve-could’ve-should’ve is undefeated”.

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At this point the separation of Richard Seymour from the ranks of being employed by the Oakland Raiders is all but academic.

Not that the team is going to make it official as the Raiders don’t openly discuss contract matters but multiple outlets have already reported Seymour’s contract being voided after he failed to reach contractual incentives spelled out in the language of his restructured deal. Of course since this was a deal brokered by Al Davis the effects will linger beyond Seymour’s final days in The Bay.

Officially the Raiders will gain around $5-million in cap space. However the amount of dead money still allotted to the now voided deal counts for around $13-million against the cap.

Hard to justify those costs for a past his prime defender that played well but ultimately wasn’t the difference maker the defense needed.

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This didn’t at all go according to plan. Richard Seymour certainly has provided the Raiders with veteran leadership, a dominating presence in the middle of the defensive line and even helped this franchise to its only two non-losing seasons in a decade. Until this season he was a perennial Pro Bowler and has been involved in community.

All of the above are admirable and certainly made Seymour’s time in Oakland a success on many levels.

But after it is all said and done the Seymour era will end in very unceremonious fashion which is not at all much different than how it began.

We’ve certainly seen the last of Seymour this season. It would also appear we’ve seen the last of him in Oakland all together. If that’s the case it is impossible to ignore the complete 360 the franchise has made during Seymour’s time in the East Bay.

In fact the irony of how similar his Raider beginning is to his Raider ending is eerie.

As you’ll recall when Al Davis first parted with a first round pick for Seymour’s services the future Hall of Famer was nowhere to be found. Perhaps his shock from being traded so abruptly was so great, Seymour was very hesitant to report to Oakland. In fact the Raiders eventually had to send Seymour a threatening letter to get him to his new place of employment.

Once he arrived in Oakland Seymour was a professional in every way possible. Of course his first season as a Raider didn’t exactly do much to make his trade seem worth the value as the team finished 5-11.

So here we are four years later and Seymour is once again missing in action having missed the last two months of the season due to injury. And despite two non-losing seasons the Raiders are once again back to the double-digit loss business with a pathetic record of 4-11.

While there have been some moments of madness in which Seymour’s fiery nature has gotten the best of him he’s largely been a valued leader and defender. But for this franchise to be right back where it started prior to his acquisition says a lot. Now it says more about the Raiders than Seymour as most every move made over the last decade has been a Band-Aid repair. None the less the Seymour era in Oakland is ending as it began – with the Raiders losing and Seymour nowhere to be found.