8
The Chargers used up the entire 2011 salary cap
Link
chargers.com
"In our case, we knew that we would be paying incentives that were earned during the season and had not been counting against the Cap ("Not Likely to Be Earned" incentives) in excess of the amount of Cap Room that we had remaining. So, we won’t have any room at the end of the League Year. And we’ll also have an additional amount deducted from next year’s Cap because our incentive adjustment will be more than the Cap space that we had remaining at the end of the season." -Ed McGuire
This was already included in the daily link dump, but I thought it was worth emphasizing. Paying out contract incentives caused the team to hit the 2011 cap and even exceed it. The team can not simply 'open up the wallet' and 'stop being cheap'.
