Still-Unsigned Russell Now Useless to Raiders This Season
The rookie season of quarterback JaMarcus Russell, the top overall selection in the NFL draft in April by the Oakland Raiders, is over before it even starts.
Russell remains unsigned as the preseason concludes and the regular season rapidly approaches. Lane Kiffin, the Raiders' rookie head coach, is set to choose between Daunte Culpepper and Josh McCown as the club's opening day starter, with Andrew Walter having been relegated to third quarterback status.
NFL rules allow the team with the top choice in the draft to sign the player that it intends to pick before the draft begins. The Raiders didn't do that with Russell, and now negotiations have dragged on long enough to wipe out his entire training camp and exhibition season. He's so far behind that he'll be useless to Kiffin and the Raiders this season, and his entire career could be affected. So, too, could be Kiffin's career as an NFL head coach. He inherited a troubled team that simply couldn't afford to waste the top pick in the draft.
It can be debated which side deserves the bulk of the blame, but it doesn't really matter. Russell and Kiffin have been victims of bad negotiating, and it's possible that neither will ever recover to salvage a successful NFL career.
By Mark Maske |
August 31, 2007; 9:47 AM ET
| Category:
Raiders
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Posted by: RobGreg | August 31, 2007 12:41 PM
Kind of like John Nash drafting Juwan Howard and then claiming he shouldn't have gone that high? Trade down if that's what you believe...
Posted by: Bullets Fever | August 31, 2007 1:30 PM
To me,this seems like a bold statement to make Mark. To say that Russell's career may be ruined before it begins. I have no idea about the current state of negotiations between the parties but for the sake of argument, let's say they're close enough to get a deal signed by tomorrow. Couldn't Russell conceivably ride the pine for 16 games, bury his nose in the playbook, basically observe and learn and participate in practices as much as possible this season and next off-season, and return to his status as the Raiders' QB of the future next year? I may be way off here but it sort of reminds me of when Carson Palmer came into the league. Didn't he sit out most, if not all, of his first pre-season because of contract issues, ride the bench all season behind Kitna, then take over in his second season? Certainly Russell can do the same, no? Or does he have character issues I'm unaware of (and I'm unaware of a lot it seems).
Posted by: E | August 31, 2007 2:41 PM
To me this is a classic mistake and one that I hate to see repeated over and over again. I believe the poster has the example of Heath Schuler in mind when he says that Russell's career is ruined. Certainly this season has been wasted.
I believe that a young QB needs the reps in practice and preseason if he hopes to make a difference in his rookie season. By sitting out guys like Russell and Quinn delay the progress of their careers.
Maybe in the eyes of their agents, this doesn't matter. I can envision an agent saying that a year of observing in the backup role prepares the QB for success. Also, they are getting paid the same amount of money without absorbing the punishment they would get as a young starter.
But for me I can't imagine failing to reach an agreement and getting into camp if I really believed that I had the potential to become an all-pro player. As a rookie, there is so much to learn that I would want to get my career started.
Posted by: Ken | September 1, 2007 8:31 AM
It could go either way with Russell. But Maske is not off the beam in suggesting that Russell may already have taken a substantial career hit. The NFL is littered with people who engaged in high-profile holdouts only to eventually report or get traded and then not have the goods. This is true of rookies like Shuler, and even big-time veterans like Joey Galloway. It's pretty shocking that NFL players, even rookies, don't seem to realize that many of them have pretty short shelf lives and that throwing a season away is, if not suicidal, certainly worthy of a suicide watch.
Posted by: vajent | September 2, 2007 12:32 PM
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What's the surprise here? Al davis has been making bonehead decisions for years. The old guy just does not have it anymore. if it is true they are not trying to pay him the QB premium, funy to take that stance when you draft the QB number 1 overall! just typical Raiders stupidity. Just dumb!