Jamarcus Russell’s 2009-10 season came to an official end Monday when head coach Tom Cable excused him from a final team meeting to deal with personal issues. The Oakland Tribune discovered Russell’s issues could only be resolved by a trip to Las Vegas.
Jamarcus finished the season with a league low 50 quarterback rating and along with Randy Hanson contributed to the impending firing of Cable. He’s gonna go down as the black Ryan Leaf. I hope Mel Kiper doesn’t get paid by correct predictions because he flopped as bad as Jamarcus Russell at the 2007 NFL Draft.
“Jamarcus Russell’s gonna immediately energize that Raider Nation, that fanbase, that football team- on the practice field, in that locker room- three years from now you could be looking at a guy that’s certainly one of the elite top five quarterbacks in this league.
You’re talking about a 2-3 year period once he’s under center. Look out because skill level that he has is certainly John Elway like.”
Uh.. Mel must not have been talking about the same Jamarcus Russell. No matter how mad they are now Raider Nation was happy to land Russell in 2007.
Jamarcus Russell is a bust but outside of going with a free agent quarterback I’m not sure what the Raiders could’ve done.
Rd 2007 Drafted Quarterbacks
1 JaMarcus Russell- Oakland Raiders
1 Brady Quinn- Cleveland Browns
2 Kevin Kolb- Philadelphia Eagles
2 John Beck- Miami Dolphins
2 Drew Stanton- Detroit Lions
3 Trent Edwards- Buffalo Bills
5 Jeff Rowe- Cincinnati Bengals
5 Troy Smith- Baltimore Ravens
6 Jordan Palmer- Washington Redskins
7 Tyler Thigpen- Minnesota Vikings
The Dolphins, Ravens, Redskins, and Vikings all drafted QBs again in 2008. The Lions drafted Matt Stafford in 2009. The Raiders had their choice of Jamarcus, Brady Quinn (Brady Quinn in the city of Oakland? Yeah right.), Trent Edwards, and Kevin Kolb. The Silver and Black might have a little better record with one of the other quarterbacks but more than likely the dysfunctional franchise would’ve dragged them down. As long as Al Davis is in control of the team and Raider players are getting pimp-slapped the Nation is in for black clouds with no silver lining.
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Hindsight is 20/20 isn’t it?
Here’s a short quote from wikipedia about him. This one is from his junior season:
“He had a productive 2006 regular season, leading the Tigers to a 10-2 record and a BCS Sugar Bowl berth. He threw for 3,129 yards, 28 touchdowns and 8 interceptions. He was second in the SEC with 2,923 yards from scrimmage. Russell won the SEC Offensive Player of the Week award three times during the regular season.”
Those are some pretty good numbers and achievements. At the time, this pick made perfect sense.