Raiders’ season will boil down to Russell

By Anthony Carroll  |   Tuesday, March 24, 2009  |  Comments( 16 )

Oakland Raiders
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According to most accounts, the Oakland Raiders have put together a very strong 2009 offseason. They’ve dumped dead weight, cut oversized contracts, made some sound investments along the O-line (Khalif Barnes, Samson Satele, Erik Pears) and re-signed their only two Pro Bowlers (Nnamdi Asomugha and Shane Lechler).

It’s been an overall busy offseason for Al Davis. That’s nothing new. The 79-year-old owner always gives fans enough to chew on during the offseason.

In the end, though, Oakland’s progress in the win/loss column will be in the hands of its 23-year-old leader, JaMarcus Russell.

The third-year quarterback and former first overall pick now has a full season of starting experience under his belt, and can no longer play the “basically still a rookie” card.

The final two weeks of the 2008 season, then, should give Raider fans more hope than any offseason move the team could make. It was the young quarterback’s best back-to-back string of performances since he entered the NFL, and it came along with two wins. In those two contests, the former LSU standout completed 70 percent of his pass attempts for 384 yards, four TDs and one INT.

Week 17, in particular, showed that Russell matured immensely throughout the course of the ‘08 campaign. The 31-24 season-closer was a come-from-behind win in a hostile environment against a Buccaneers team fighting for its playoff life.

Russell didn’t look 23 years old in that win.

“Tampa was like closure,” Raiders coach Tom Cable said Tuesday at the NFL owners' meetings. “We got behind by 10 and for the first time since I’d been with the Raiders, when you looked around the sidelines, it was all right, we’re OK. Defense, get us the ball, offense, go get us a score, we’ll get it right back for you. You started to hear those things rather than, Ah, man, here we go again. We get down by 10, it didn’t matter. We came back and won.”

When Russell first came into the NFL, though, there were major questions surrounding his work ethic and drive. Last March, there were even rumors that the 260-pound passer ballooned to nearly 300 pounds.

Cable, though, has no doubt Russell is more than motivated to lead his team in 2009.

“He’s very driven. I think he’s a very passionate guy. He’s certainly very motivated to not be a failure, to not be the kid from Mobile that couldn’t get it done -- all the hoopla, all the this and that. He doesn’t want to be that. He wants to be the guy. And he’s very driven.”

On the year, the 6-foot-6 Russell completed 53.8 percent of his passes for 2,423 yards, 13 TDs and eight interceptions. In his rookie season, Russell completed a comparable 54.5 percent of his attempts, but threw for 68 fewer yards per contest and had just two TDs to four picks.

Year 3, Cable thinks, will be the “boom" season.

“If you look at the numbers, many of them (great young QBs) have that same kind of path: Year 2, Year 3 -- boom, here it comes. But I think all of them had one thing in common -- they really embraced what it is to be the leader.”

If Russell can continue where he left off in Week 17, the Raiders may find themselves playing more than just spoiler late in the season.
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About Anthony Carroll

Anthony Carroll began writing for RealFootball365.com on Sept. 26, 2005, making him one of the longest tenured contributors to the “365” team. As a senior writer, Anthony has taken on the task of delivering original content to the silver and black faithful year round, despite having to deal ...
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CommentsComments: 16  |  Sign Up  View all comments
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No.1
neil b		04:16 AM
03/25/2009
I could go on about football being a team sport,no ones bigger than the team and so on.Is the QB the most important position on ...
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No.2
svduran1		05:58 AM
03/25/2009
Do bears sh*t in the woods? Thirty two teams start the season putting the weight of the world on their Quarterbacks. That's ...
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No.3
The Franchise		06:31 AM
03/25/2009
run the ball and we control the clock, russell will have to get better at hitting miller with the out passes and as long as his ...
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