Sympathy for the Devil (of Raider Nation)

The first pick on Pete Rozelle's watch as NFL Commissioner was the legendary Billy Cannon.
The first pick of Paul Tagliabue's stint was Jeff George.
The first first pick announced by Roger Goodell was Jamarcus Russell.
That trajectory is what learned men might call portentous.

Widely considered one of the biggest #1 pick busts in NFL history, Jamarcus Russell signed a 6 year $68 million deal in 2007 to resurrect Al Davis' slumping Oakland Raiders.
But the fact is, the kid never really had a chance.
Here's a refresher on the situation he was drafted into: The Raiders were coming off a 2-14 season, with 3 shutout losses, 8 games without a touchdown, and ending on a 9 game losing streak.
This was (and unfortunately, still is) a team adrift. Its obvious that losing that Super Bowl to Tampa Bay in 2003 was devastating, but has anyone ever seen an entire organizational collapse of this magnitude? Consider this: In January 2003, the Oakland Raiders had the highest all-time winning percentage of any professional sports team. In the years since, they have the worst. Of all-time.
Even that sentence feels insufficient to explain just how bad it's been.

Oakland Raiders	.591	1960-2002
New York Yankees	.568	All-time MLB best
Chicago Bears	.578	All-time NFL best
Los Angeles Lakers	.619	All-time best  win %
Oakland Raiders	.306	2003-12
Charlotte Bobcats	.346	All-time NBA worst
Los Angeles Clippers	.375	Long-time NBA worst
Tampa Bay Lightning	.384	All-time NHL worst
Tampa Bay Buccaneers	.396	All-time NFL worst
Tampa Bay Devil Rays	.460	All-time MLB worst

It's not even close.

(Side note: Tampa is one terrible NBA team away from the cycle! Adam Silver, this needs to be your first order of business.)

All of this cannot be laid at the feet of Jamarcus Russell. This level of rot must stem from the top.
Starting NFL quarterback is the most watched position in sports, and any time a quarterback is drafted #1 overall there is a feeling that he's got to come in and turn things around. Fast. But there are two kinds of teams that land the #1 pick in the NFL: 1) Terrible teams in need of a QB, and 2) terrible teams in need of just about everything. Andrew Luck landed on the former, Jamarcus Russell, the latter.
Consider, since 2003, the Raiders have only had 1 offensive player voted to the Pro Bowl (Zach Miller in 2010-11, also a 2007 draftee, who promptly ran off to join The Pete Carroll Experience).
No matter how good a QB is, he can't win games by himself.

Just before halftime of a game in Jacksonville in December 2007, Raiders defensive tackle Warren Sapp got into a shouting match with the officials, got flagged for 3 consecutive unsportsmanlike conduct penalties and was ejected. And just as Sapp had made his final mark on the league (he would only play one more game before retiring), Jamarcus emerged from the halftime break ready to make his first. And make it he did. A black mark. 3 INTs.  This too, portentous.

You all know what happened next.

18 TDs & 23 INTs. 7 wins, 18 losses. Yada yada yada.

It wasn't pretty, and the less said about it the better. Moving on.

December 13, 2009. The Raiders were at home against Washington, coming off a win in Pittsburgh with Bruce Gradkowski at the helm. Jamarcus has been benched a few weeks earlier and the Grad-man had won two of his first 3 starts since getting the nod. With the team down 13-10, the ball deep in their own end and about 15 seconds left in the first half, Gradkowski dropped back to pass. Seeing no one open he tried to move up in the pocket, but he was grabbed from behind and dragged down awkwardly. The medical staff is summoned as a hush falls over Oakland-Alameda Coliseum. Oh no.



When the Raiders offense took the field for the second half, Jamarcus Russell took the field with them and the hush before halftime transformed into a deafening hail of boos. I've heard visiting players and refs and calls get booed before, I've heard owners and commissioners get booed, but never anything like this for a guy from the home team. The first incomplete pass he fired was met with even more boos. For an incomplete pass, not an interception, not a sack, not a fumble. Just a run of the mill incompletion. It was over. Russell wouldn't start again for the Raiders (though he did appear twice more in relief for an injury-prone Charlie Frye), but it was clear he didn't have what it takes, and, more damningly, it was clear the rift between him and the fans was irreparable. I don't know that anyone in the history of sports has ever been more mercilessly booed by home fans than Jamarcus Russell on that day in December.

Russell was cut by the Raiders in the offseason and hasn't been seen on an NFL field since. In an act of knife-twisting irony, he was replaced by the opposing QB from that game against Washington, Jason Campbell. (And Campbell was actually quite good, leading the team to 12-5 record in his starts before he was injured, then inexplicably demoted and eventually dismissed for [old] Carson Palmer in a Hue Jackson-engineered panic, but that's a whole other story). Jamarcus Russell had become the ultimate object of derision, the signpost of all that was wrong with overpaid athletes and the NFLPA's collective bargaining agreement and the hip-hop generation and every other sports and social malady.
In his time in Oakland, Russell played under Lane Kiffin, who never wanted him, and Tom Cable, who never liked him (When Cable's contract was not renewed after the 2011 season, he, too, signed on for The Pete Carroll Experience). Having the support of your coaches is crucial for a young player, even more than having the support of the fans. Without it, you can't develop confidence in your own abilities nor gain the respect of your teammates. If your teammates don't believe in you, you never develop the kind of chemistry necessary for success. And then you lose. And lose. And lose. But again, this comes from the top. Al Davis forced Kiffin to play Russell when the coach knew he wasn't ready. Davis never trusted his coaches evaluations over his own (with the possible exception of John Madden) and as a result the team foundered, Russell struggled and fewer and fewer fans bothered to show up. Pride was Al Davis' stock in trade, the thing that led him to be a successful coach and owner, helped him lead the way in integrating pro football, led him to steal controlling interest in the team, and it was ultimately his fatal flaw, the thing that led to his downfall as an owner as he watched his team wallow in misery for the last decade. Because he always knew better than anyone else, his mistakes went unchecked and as time went on his mistakes piled up and the team paid dearly as a result.

Anyone who watched the Raiders in the Jamarcus Russell era would be all too familiar with the sight of Russell slinking off the field after yet another 3 and out, sitting alone on the bench wearing a black beanie. Most QBs come off and talk to coaches, talk to their linemen, pick up that sideline red phone and call upstairs and look at pictures; not Russell. He would take a seat and that was that. You can put that on him if you like, but somewhere there has to be a leader on the team or on the coaching staff telling him that that isn't the way a pro does it. And staying after him until he cleaned up his act. Maybe that's coddling, but so what? If you're investing $68 million why wouldn't you do everything you can to help him succeed? Would you rather just watch him flail and fail and do nothing but point fingers as you all ride down on a sinking ship?

Jamarcus gets a lot of the blame for his brief period of miserable-ness, but it hasn't gotten any better since he left. Prior to this past April, the Raiders hadn't drafted a single QB since Russell in 2007, which might be defensible had they found "the guy" through free agency or trade but they didn’t (and even if they had it wouldn’t be a good strategy; in the Tom Brady era alone the Patriots have drafted Rohan Davey, Matt Cassel, Kliff Kingsbury, Kevin O'Connell, Zac Robinson, and Ryan Mallett at QB.).

Here's the W-L record of every Raider QB since the start of Russell's rookie year:

Josh McCown	2-7
Daunte Culpepper	3-4
Jamarcus Russell	7-18
Andrew Walter	2-7
Bruce Gradkowski	3-5
Charlie Frye	1-2
Jason Campbell	12-5
Kyle Boller	0-1
Carson Palmer	8-16
Terrelle Pryor	0-1

Embarrassing. Yet not one member on that woeful brood is persona non grata in Oakland other than Russell. They've got yet another new QB in this year, and Raider Nation remains hopeful that maybe they've finally got their guy and hopeful they can get this thing turned around by the time the next commissioner announces his first pick.

I don't know that Jamarcus Russell would've done better on a different team in a different situation where he could've sat for a year and watched; maybe he really was as bad as he played and no amount of coaching or training or camaraderie could've coaxed more out of him.

I don't know that any other quarterback in the 2007 draft class could've done a better job in his place for the Raiders. Not one of them is starting for an NFL team today, most are not even on NFL rosters. (Brady Quinn, Tyler Thigpen, Drew Stanton, Isaiah Stanback, Troy Smith, Jordan Palmer, Jeff Rowe, Trent Edwards, John Beck, Kevin Kolb...yikes).

I don’t know that any non-QB in that draft could’ve done something to turn things around. I was hoping the team would take Joe Thomas, who’s turned out to be an All-Pro offensive lineman. Calvin Johnson was right there too. (Even though I didn’t think it would’ve made sense to draft a wide receiver without a real quarterback to throw him the ball, seeing Megatron at Georgia Tech destroying fools while hauling in every pitiful pass from Reggie Ball, I was convinced there was nothing he couldn’t do, and his pro career to date has done nothing to change my opinion on him.)

I do know this: Even though Jamarcus Russell had a chance, he never had a chance.

Futzing with Football: Pro Bowl Edition

The NFL & NFLPA decided this week to make a few changes to the Pro Bowl. Some are welcome (adopting the NHL idea of the fantasy draft, eliminating kick-offs aka the most dangerous play in football), some seem more dubious (ball changes hands at the end of every quarter, allowing Cover 2 defense).This is all well and good and it's nice that the league is still concerned with making the Pro Bowl an enjoyable experience for fans, but I think it's still too much like regular football, and I've got 4 or 5 ideas I think can push it even further into the realm of wacky offseason exhibition it really deserves to be.

1) Play 7 on 7 flag football tournament.
Look, it's already a glorified game of touch football, with nobody going all out, why not cut the pretense and take the tackling out all together. Sure there's no chance to see big hits, but no one wants to see big hits in the Pro Bowl. Instead what you could get is the surreal sight of seeing Joe Thomas lined up at Nickel Back against BJ Raji in the slot. Who wouldn't watch that? All you would have to do is mandate that at least say 2 linemen are in on every play as eligible receivers. 1 QB, 2 linemen, 4 skill players/DBs/LBs. Beautiful. Also, this eliminates one factor that is currently in play with the fantasy draft format. Imagine JJ Watt and Arian Foster end up on opposing teams. Do you think JJ is gonna take any chance of laying an injury on his teammate in a (mostly) meaningless exhibition game? Methinks not.

As for the tournament format, make it 4 teams of 25 players, 100 players total (100!). So each team plays 2 games. 1 in the semi-finals, then either the championship game or the 3rd place game. Players pay-outs would based on finish. $100,000 for winning, 75K for 2nd, 50K for 3rd, 25K for 4th.

Since it's 7 on 7 you could play to a score instead of playing a timed game. So it's first to score 5 (or 7 or 10) times OR 30 minutes, whichever comes first to keep it moving.

2) Everybody plays 2 ways (except QBs, obviously)
One of the great things about an exhibition game is, or should be, that there is a certain freedom that you don't have in a game that counts. There's room to take chances on things that you would never do, like certain trick plays or, more importantly, letting guys play out of their normal position. I do that and more by REQUIRING players to play out of their normal position. Everyone who plays, has to play both ways equally. 10 plays on offense = 10 plays on defense (and vice versa). If the time runs out and someone played defense but didn't play just as much offense your team forfeits at least one score for every play missed and the game can't end if you reach the required number of scores but everyone hasn't fulfilled their play requirement.
This is where coaches will really have to earn their stripes, managing everybody's plays. Actually this would just be a miserable task for some miserable assistant coach who already hates his miserable life because he thinks he should be a head coach. This will really help make sure everybody plays and not too much. But it could give us some intriguing matchups.

Besides, who wouldn't want to see more of this?

The one exception here is QBs. They're too important to have them running around the field of play. As much as we'd all like to see it, it's much better for all of us if they stick to what they do best. Good quarterbacking is too important, even in an exhibition. The other QB related thing I'd throw in is this: Each team gets 2 QBs and both have to play, so it would be fun to see how coaches decide which one to start and which one to use as the closer.

3) Fans Design Uniforms
Or at least Nike. One of the things young fans love about college football is the teams (specifically Oregon) with wild uniforms. I think an NFL/Nike collaboration on a contest that allowed fans to design uniforms (via a website or a Pro Bowl Uniform Designer App©) for the Pro Bowl teams over the summer (to keep fans engaged!) then Nike and the NFLPA pick the top 10 and put it up to a fan vote for the 4 uniforms that will go to the Pro Bowl. I can't wait to see what you all come up with!
At the Fantasy Draft, the team with the 4th pick would get first pick of uniforms and so on, and the jerseys could be 3D printed on the spot. The future is now!

4) Super Bowl Scratches Pick Their Replacements
I think this is only fair. If you earned a Pro Bowl spot AND a trip to the Super Bowl I think you ought to at least get to choose the man that goes as your representative. The great thing about this is that they can't choose a teammate, as the teammates are also going to the Super Bowl, so who would they pick? Would they go with an old college buddy? The hometown team's favorite player who didn't make it, in hopes of getting extra swag from the city while you're there? A player from a rival team who was the last man out? Would A Super Bowl-bound QB troll the entire sports world and pick Tebow???
I would invite the players to announce their selections on Twitter, so they could be as friendly or as passive-aggressive as they want to be in inviting someone to take their spot. And would anyone turn down the offer? (Tebow probably would). If you invited someone to take your spot and they declined, then what? Do the rights to that spot go to the player you picked? Oh man, I didn't think this through all the way, we don't want to end up with Pro Bowl roster spot hot potato!
If you're injured and can't play, though, tough; you still get replaced by whatever method is currently in use.

5) Get to the Super Bowl site.
Honestly, Hawaii has been a great host over the decades and there's no question I would jump at the chance for a free Hawaiian vacation too, but this isn't all about the players, there's TV and the league to think about. Having a massive influx of star players in the Super Bowl city the week before the game would be amazing for the league and media (won't somebody please think of the show bookers on Radio Row!); and it's not like the players can't take their vacations one week later. Players can go to Hawaii on their own time, on their own dime. They make plenty of money to afford to take their families on any tropical vacation of their choosing. Besides, if you're the family of a perennial Pro Bowler, wouldn't you want to maybe vacation somewhere else for a change? Same city, same hotel every February? Boooooring. (And shouldn't the kids be in school anyway???)

The NFL has been amping up it's Super Bowl week NFL Experience faux theme park thing anyway and adding the Pro Bowl would be a perfect add-on for regular NFL fans in a regular NFL city to be able to go an event that wouldn't cost a bajillion dollars like the main event. In fact, you could even let season ticket holders in as part of their ticket package, so local fans have a buy-in to the hoopla and not just tourists.

So there you have it, NFL. Implement these changes and watch your Pro Bowl ratings soar. (Especially if Peyton Manning gives his spot to Tebow).