So as the dust settles on JaMarcus Russell in the week after he was released by the Oakland Raiders he has received a few nibbles, but has yet to resurface even as a back-up, and I can't say I'm surprised. Former Raiders and Colts running back Dominic Rhodes played with Russell briefly and he noted that Russell doesn't have the passion for football that makes an NFL quaterback. Russell would be content as a back-up, and that means that unless Russell is in need of money, I doubt he's going to take a job anytime soon.
Russell may not be the same head case that Ryan Leaf is, at least in a verbal and front page scale, but he certainly had his issues.
I think it's safe to say that JaMarcus Russell's career as an NFL starter is over. He started 25 career games and appeared in 31. The former number one overall pick was guaranteed $31.25 million dollars coming out of LSU in the 2007 NFL Draft. Russell was a disaster from day one. He held out and didn't sign with Oakland until September 2007 after Oakland had already taken the field. Russell would play in one game and start four in his first season. By and large, it was a redshirt season.
But Russell was named the starting quarterback for 2008 after the 07 season finished, and the expectations were high...for owner Al Davis. From the get-go, people said that Russell was overdrafted at first overall because of Oakland's dire need at quarterback and Al Davis' love of incredible athletes with huge arms.
In a top-heavy 2007 draft that saw Joe Thomas, Calvin Johnson, and Adrian Peterson all get taken in the first seven picks, the Raiders passed on all three of those players to grab Russell. Even so, my expectations were never high, and he didn't have the same type of expectations that players like Tim Couch, David Carr, and Ryan Leaf did...unless you were Al Davis.
Russell's 2008 season looks moderately respectable from a statistical point of view. Well, that really only holds up when you realize that he threw only eight interceptions in fifteen starts. But at the same time Russell failed horribly to move the offense. He threw just thirteen touchdown passes, had just 6.6 yards per attempt, and his completion percentage was in the low 50's--just appalling. The Raiders went 5-10 with Russell starting, and Russell had six games where he completed less than half his passes, in some cases under forty percent of his passes.
In 2009, Russell seemed to go backwards. His ability to push the offense down field became even worse and he completed less than fifty percent of his passes in nine starts and twelve appearances while throwing three touchdowns to eleven interceptions. Russell also coughed the ball up nine times on the ground...twenty five total in twenty five games in his career.
So Russell was a huge bust. 7-18 as a starter, lifetime completion percentage just a hair over fifty, a career yards per attempt of 6.0 (that's just awful), and he averaged about 130 yards per game (in a full 16 game season that would be about 2100 yards...awful).
And then there's the work ethic issues. He constantly showed up to camp weighing near 300 pounds (40 pounds over his playing weight) and looking like an offensive tackle. He fell asleep during team meetings and in film sessions. Lane Kiffin didn't even want to draft him in 2007, and probably cost Kiffin a job. Add in Russell's just bone-head, deer-in-headlights play on the field and you may want to call him the greatest draft blunder in history. That may be true.
And as the number one overall pick in 2007 that makes him the new king of busts right? Wrong. It's still Ryan Leaf. Leaf was taken 2nd overall in 1998 and like Russell got big money right away. A four-year deal worth 31.25 million (which was ENORMOUS in the late 90's) and a signing bonus of 11.25 million (largest ever given to a rookie QB at the time). The Chargers traded up to get him, and had the option of moving up to #1 to get Manning, but said they felt comfortable with whichever quarterback the Colts didn't take. The expectations around Leaf were beyond enormous. Leaf said after the draft he was expecting a couple of Super Bowl trips, Pro Bowls, and a few parades in downtown San Diego.
Leaf won the first two games of his career. He won just two more the rest of his career. He tried to get out of practice once by claiming a hand injury...and was found to be playing golf. He was supposed to be rehabbing his shoulder injury that cost him all of the 1999 season, and wound up playing flag football in Ocean Beach when he was supposed to be rehabbing. His infamous blow up on a member of a San Diego media forced him to be restrained by futuer Hall of Famer and then Chargers linebacker Junior Seau. Leaf still holds the status as greatest draft bust in history.
But Russell won't be forgotten anytime soon. Some draft busts are forgotten, and they fall into the nothingness. Does anyone really remember that Michael Haynes was taken in the Top 15 in 2003 and proceeded to do nothing in his career? Or that the Jaguars took R.J. Soward over Laveranues Coles in 2000? Some busts fade into nothingness. Will anyone outside of Minnesota remember the inability of Erasmus James to get after the quarterback despite being a top 20 pick in 2005?
Russell was the number one overall pick, and the Raiders bet the farm on the cannon-armed quarterback from LSU, who probably wouldn't have gone until the second round if it hadn't been for a huge performance in the Sugar Bowl against an inept Notre Dame defense followed by one of the best combine performances in history (which means almost nothing for a quarterback) Russell never would have gone as high as he did. At best, he'd have been a late first round pick with an incentive-laden contract. By giving the work-ethic deficient Russell a gigantic contract from the get-go, he was on a similar level salary-wise as Tom Brady who is going to one day be enshrined in Canton. That doesn't do much to help someone whose work ethic was notoriously poor.
This is the final straw for those pushing for a rookie cap. The number of high-profile busts has fallen over the last decade because scouts now have to nitpick everything about draft picks because of the amount of money teams are investing in Top 8 picks. But if a rookie cap is installed in 2011, things are going to change--and they need to. The Jets took Vernon Gholston 6th overall in 2008 after a decorated career at Ohio State where Gholston looked like a professional athlete throwing amateur linemen around like rag dolls, and in some cases, professional ones like Jake Long in his final game against Michigan. Right off the bat Gholston got a 5-year 32.5 million dollar contract. While there were incentives for another 17.5 million, Gholston had 21 million guaranteed. So why bother going for the incentives? He was already a very rich man as a 22-year old.
Players need something to work for. Albert Haynesworth was immensely talented coming out of Tennessee, but people saw his work ethic issues amongst other things and he fell into the second round. Haynesworth became a dominant force at tackle for the Titans and then earned an enormous contract with the Redskins. While the Skins may regretting that contract now, the point is that Haynesworth worked for it. For the majority of first round picks this isn't a huge issue, but for top eight players it's major.
Vernon Davis is entering a contract year and conveniently had his break-out season the year before. He's now poised for a huge extension with the 49ers. Did the light suddenly flick on? For some players, it does take time to adapt to the NFL, but this is a little too convenient. The NFL needs a rookie pool and they need it badly. Scale rookie wages and force them to earn their money. It will even the playing field because guys with work ethic issues but are super talented all of a sudden will have something to work for.
And then maybe they'll be a giant free agent bust, or maybe the light will have fully turned on and they'll earn their money, but the NFL must bring in a rookie pool because that will put the honus of scouting on a player's skills first and foremost instead of his personality. While that will never leave scouting, talent will become the most important thing because players will have to work for big contracts. A second round pick will make between $500,000 to $700,000 annually on his rookie contract, but with the potential to make ten times that a player with the talent will work his ass off to do the job. You think DeSean Jackson didn't have first round talent? He's proving it now because he wants a big contract.
Roger Goodell has made this a priority, and this has to be a sticking point in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. It's good for the players and it's good for the game. There will be more money available for teams to re-sign their drafted talent. It's time to get it done. Thanks for once again bringing this problem to light JaMarcus Russell.
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