That Time JaMarcus Russell Was a Good QB

JaMarcus Russell had a very good seven-week stretch in 2008, which may just validate his entire career.

Welcome back to my Sports Passion Project, where did you know I haven’t released a post about football since October 1?

I know. It feels like forever when I say it like that, but don’t worry. I’ve got some good things in the works.

None of those good things are this.

I’m still attempting to recover my mental capacity from the fantastic Mike Brown vs Grant Langston article that came out on Monday. It look a lot of my energies to write that one, and not all of those energies have returned yet, so this is not Trent Green part seven. It’s not a winding tale with many twists and turns. I just don’t have the writing energy back yet to write something like that.

However, those of you who know me well and have read a lot of my back catalogue understand that one of the things that gets me out of bed in the morning is to say good things about really bad players. What can I say? I like bringing positivity into the narratives of players that are often either forgotten, or only remembered to be laughed at.

I think the latter applies best to the subject of this piece, JaMarcus Russell.

People love to laugh at JaMarcus Russell. They love to laugh that he was fat, lazy, unfocused on football, and addicted to codeine syrup. They love to laugh that he was a number one overall pick that never generated positive EPA/Play or a positive CPOE in a season, and they love to laugh that he washed out of the game at just 24 years of age.

All of these things are wrong for one reason or another, and I’m going to go out on a limb to say I support JaMarcus’s version of the events that took place. Let me tell you the story.

Born in Mobile, Alabama to Bobby Lloyd and Zina Russell, JaMarcus has made little known publicly about his childhood, but has always given the impression of a large, happy, and supportive family. In addition to two parents, JaMarcus had a whole host of uncles. This is the same group of uncles that come back later in this story, but for now, they were a tremendously positive influence on the young man.

There’s uncle Mike, who worked at a paper company and would steal (in the same way you steal a pen from your workplace, nothing bad) school supplies for his nephew to use. There’s uncle Ray Ray, who JaMarcus took as a second father, and also uncle Marcus (yes, JaMarcus was named after him), the man who got the young man into the game of football.

Even as a six year old kid, Russell towered over all the other kids, and was therefore placed at the QB position, the position he would play for the remainder of his life. You can imagine how a future number one overall draft pick treated the Pop Warner kids in Alabama, and that’s about how it went. Things were all going well for him, but once we get into his teen years is where we’re introduced to an unpleasant part of the story.

At age 14, JaMarcus was just playing in the park with some friends when one of them told him to go get a drink from their cooler. To JaMarcus, it just looked like Pineapple Orange Faygo, so he took a big swig, but it was not just Faygo. Unknowingly, this poor 14 year old kid has just stepped into a whole new world of opiate addiction.

It was lean.

Do you know what lean is?

My audience is cool, so I suspect you guys know what lean is, but I’ll explain it to you anyway. It’s basically prescription-grade cough syrup (preferably containing codeine) mixed with soda, to create something you can drink. Even if you haven’t drank a bottle of lean, surely you’ve had a tablespoon of prescription-grade cough syrup, and understand the effects it has on you. Imagine watering it down with soda so you can drink a whole bottle’s worth.

It’s hard to explain the feeling with words, but Wikipedia describes it as “lethargy, drowsiness, and a dissociative feeling from all other parts of the body” and I would agree with that. It’s a great buzz, which makes it the worst thing in the world for this poor 14 year old kid to run into. He’s hooked after that.

This is the first misconception about JaMarcus Russell. It’s extremely reductive to say he was addicted to cough syrup. That’s an intentional distortion to make him seem foolish, because people at home sit there and say ‘who gets hooked on cough syrup?’

He did not get addicted on a prescription for cough syrup. He was a kid who got hooked on lean. It happens all the time.

When people discuss the opioid crisis in America, JaMarcus Russell is exactly the kind of human they’re talking about. He did not go out that day looking to find some drank. It just found him, and he could never get out of its snare after that.

Trying to quit lean is really hard. There’s a famous interview with Lil Wayne where he describes the withdrawal from trying to get off lean as ‘death,’ so when discussing JaMarcus’s addiction to codeine, don’t think of him as a fool. Think of him as a victim.

Despite all of this going on in the background, JaMarcus became a high school football legend in his hometown of Mobile. A four year starter, he’s still a living legend there, and all the state HS records are still his. Obviously, he came out of high school as a five star recruit, which brought recruiting letters from everywhere. It’s in these recruiting visits where the infamous story of throwing the ball 70 yards from his knees takes place.

In the end, he decides to sign with Nick Saban and the national champion LSU Tigers, but his career there is more choppy than his time in high school.

Redshirting as a freshman is not the worst thing in the world, especially when your team wins the national championship, but not starting as a redshirt freshman (as a five star player) is not a great sign, but then something great happens for JaMarcus.

Nick Saban bolts for the NFL.

Normally one would cry at this news, but for our man it’s fantastic, as Les Miles comes in, and JaMarcus is the starter for the 2005 season. Les has talked in interviews since about how he believes JaMarcus could’ve been a great NFL player, because he always had to be on top of JaMarcus to combat his (admittedly) somewhat lazy nature. However, if he kept on top of him, and always made sure every day that JaMarcus was getting himself ready to play, he was one of the best players in the world.

Les believes that the Raiders coaching staffs were never diligent enough, and allowed Russell to drift away from football while they weren’t looking, and given a better coaching staff he could’ve been a great NFL talent. I agree with this notion, for reasons that I will explain, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Following tremendous 2005 and 2006 seasons under Les Miles’ watchful eye, JaMarcus forgoes his senior season to declare for the NFL Draft, and in the draft prep has one of the most legendary pro day performances scouts have ever seen. It’s so legendary that people still talk about it today, and if you watched JaMarcus Russell’s workouts tomorrow, you’d still pick him number one. They’re that impressive.

After this pro day, it’s virtually assured that he’s going to be the number one overall pick, but that’s the furthest thing from JaMarcus’s mind. The day after his pro day for the ages, his beloved uncle Marcus would be found non-responsive after a long night of drinking. He will eventually awake, but as late as 2009 there still exist reports of him not being presentable enough to appear in public.

What a way to mar what should’ve been the best months of a young man’s life. Nothing can ruin a good time worse than an experience with a family member like this. Thank goodness he’s not dead, but he’ll never be the same man he used to be, and nothing can fix it. The millions of dollars coming our man’s way can’t fix it. The hype of being the number one overall pick can’t fix it. All the pressure to fix a Raider ship that’s been sunk for years surely doesn’t help, nor does the still continuing codeine addiction (hidden for years by LSU).

This is a rough situation to put a young man into. In a way, coming from a mostly happy family actually makes it worse, because as somebody not accustomed to bad familial situations, no internal hardening has been done to prepare JaMarcus mentally for an event like this. All the while, JaMarcus doesn’t even get to play football to take his mind off, as he has to spend a whole summer squabbling with the Raiders over money.

Surely JaMarcus would’ve loved to just not have to do this, but his agents forbid him from having any contact with anybody in Oakland, and forbid him from playing any football of any sort, because an injury would be Armageddon at this point of the process. These are really bad circumstances, and remind me of when Boomer Esiason wasn’t allowed to play football, and his life immediately started spiralling out of control, and Boomer wasn’t reeling from a family member harmed cognitively beyond the point of repair.

Naturally, even once the holdout ends (in week two of the regular season), and JaMarcus gets a six year contract with 31.5M guaranteed dollars, he’s not exactly welcomed into Oakland with smiles all around, which makes it worse. His teammates and coaches feel that he’s put himself over them by skipping the whole of the offseason, which in a way he has but in a way he hasn’t. In the fraternity of players, one willing to hold out for more money is good for all the rest, as that increases the contract of the next college draft pick coming in. That’s good for everybody.

From the coaches’ standpoint though, they wanted no part of this process. Head Coach Lane Kiffin understands that his seat is hot. He just got there, but if you’re coaching under the legendary Al Davis, your seat is always hot. As a result, he wants to win now, begging the front office to draft WR Calvin Johnson (and not JaMarcus Russell) first overall.

He was overruled, which is why JaMarcus is in Oakland, but a rookie QB stuck with a coach who wants no part of his progress, and cares none about it, is the best way to ruin a player’s career. JaMarcus sees almost no playing time in his rookie season, which is fine, because a rookie QB without an offseason is a guaranteed disaster, but what’s also lacking is the oversight that Les Miles knew was so important.

Different players require different coaching styles. Some players (like Peyton Manning) you can leave alone and they’ll figure it all out by themselves, but that’s not our guy. JaMarcus needs a coach who’s willing to be all over him all the time, similar to Kyler Murray (and the infamous ‘Call of Duty clause’ in his contract), but Lane Kiffin isn’t willing to do that, and it hurts the young QB’s development badly.

Through the whole 2007 season, he never becomes ready to play, but for some reason in week 17 against the NFL’s second best defence (the San Diego Chargers) Lane Kiffin decides to throw him to the wolves. Our man is able to complete 75% of his passes, but on the whole it’s a predictable dumpster fire, and it feels a bit vindictive to throw the young man into this position. The 2007 Chargers are an elite defence. I understand that somebody had to start the game, but it didn’t have to be JaMarcus.

So ends our man’s miserable rookie season, but going into 2008 he’s at least going to get an offseason under his belt, which will certainly help, and to further this effort, owner (and de facto GM) Al Davis gets rid of all other viable QB options. JaMarcus is going to have to play, and is going to have to be the focus of the coaching staff, whether Lane Kiffin likes it or not.

This evolves into a very public spat between Davis and Kiffin, which culminates with Al telling Lane (in a public letter): “I know you didn’t want JaMarcus Russell. He’s a great player. Get over it and coach the team.” The two cannot work it out, and Lane Kiffin is fired four weeks into the season.

Our man can’t have been too sad to see him go, and there’s an immediate change under new coach Tom Cable. Not in terms of results, but in terms of play style. JaMarcus starts throwing longer, more difficult passes under his new coach, in an effort to show off that number one overall pick arm talent that we all know he has.

This doesn’t work either. By the time we get to the midpoint of the season, JaMarcus has generated positive EPA/Play in a game just once, and has one of the worst games any QB has ever played against the Atlanta Falcons in week nine. It’s so brutal that the Raiders give up passing despite being behind 24-0. It’s later revealed that our man was playing with an injury so bad that it forces him to sit out week ten, but it still does not inspire confidence that he’s getting worse instead of better.

However, beginning with that week long break, something actually does change, and the 2008 Raiders do turn a corner.

It begins with a week 11 matchup against the 5-4 Miami Dolphins. They’re bringing one of the NFL’s best QBs with them in 2008 Chad Pennington, and are desperately in need of this win to stay in playoff contention. Our Raiders on the other hand, are finished. We’re 2-7, with a roster even worse than last season’s 4-12 horror show.

Our only above average receiver from last season (I say above average because there are no good ones), Ronald Curry, has regressed in a big way this season. Our lead back Justin Fargas is going to finish as the worst RB in the entire NFL (min. 100 carries), with -0.95 yards above expected per carry, leaving an offence with one (and only one) above average skill position player, TE Zach Miller, and if you’ve been reading my stuff long enough, you’re bound to know my opinions on offences built around TEs.

In short, unless that TE is Travis Kelce, Rob Gronkowski, or Shannon Sharpe, it tends not to work too well.

I like Zach Miller, but Travis Kelce is a bit of a lofty comparison, meaning this offence is a disaster, and would’ve been a disaster regardless of who was taking the QB snaps. For a man with one offseason under his belt (the same amount of offseasons a rookie would have), what could have been expected with such a group of supporting players?

Maybe more than you think.

Going on the road as ten point road underdogs, nobody gives us a prayer. This game is supposed to be over, and over quickly, and when our first drive goes three and out, and Miami scores a touchdown for a quick 7-0 lead, it’s looking like that’s exactly what’s going to happen, but it isn’t what happens.

Our offence is just okay, getting a first down here or there as we exit the first quarter still behind 7-0, but when the offence runs back onto the field to give it another try to begin the second quarter, they run out there with backup QB Marques Tuiasosopo. JaMarcus has been benched.

Tom Cable immediately sees how big of a mistake this is, as Marques’s one touch (before which he induces his own O-Lineman to jump for a false start) is a ten yard sack and a fumble. That’s not happening again, so back in goes JaMarcus, and this time he’s much better.

His first pass back is a ball deep down the middle intended for Ashley Lelie that induces a pass interference penalty, getting the Raiders over midfield for the first time all day, but it doesn’t stop here. Another pass deep over the middle (this one to Zach Miller) goes for 27 yards and all of a sudden we’re looking at first and goal.

Regretfully, our man doesn’t even get a chance as a useless Justin Fargas rush, a false start penalty, a failed RB pass attempt by Darren McFadden, and another false start penalty mean we’re all the way back to the 19 before JaMarcus can touch the ball again. That touch is a 16 yard completion, leaving us at fourth and goal from the three. In 2024, you would always go for it here, but this is 2008 so it’s a field goal and a 7-3 deficit.

What a good drive. While constantly being held back by his horrendous rush offence, JaMarcus drew a big interference penalty and had two pretty big completions. If this can continue, Oakland actually has a chance to win this game.

It cannot continue. By the time we touch the ball again, we’re into the second half, and while JaMarcus gets the drive started well with an 11 yard scramble, Justin Fargas shows up again to ruin it for everybody, and we have to punt. Weirdly (and partly due to a fantastic Shane Lechler punt), the next time we touch the ball we’re only behind 7-5, as Chad Pennington was tackled in his own end zone for a safety, but that’s not the only way we can score.

Upon getting the ball back, we walk down the field again to put ourselves in position to take an 8-7 lead with a FG, but the attempt hits the upright, so we’re still behind, and the Dolphins (likely petrified at the optics of losing to the Raiders) wake up and score a touchdown to make this a 14-5 game as the fourth quarter starts.

We are able to score on our next touch, with JaMarcus completing passes of 16, 18, and 16 yards, but once again it’s just a field goal to move the score to 14-8 at the eight minute mark, but that’s the last time we’ll touch the ball today.

The Dolphins will have a four minute long drive that ends in a punt return touchdown and a 15-14 lead for us, and then another four minute long drive to kick the FG and beat us 17-15, but this is an encouraging game. JaMarcus Russell has generated positive EPA/Play for just the second time all season. At just 0.05, it’s not terribly impressive, but when the only two players with more than two pass targets are washed up Ronald Curry and good but not great TE Zach Miller, it’s more impressive than it sounds.

It feels odd to call a performance with only six offensive points scored encouraging, but for once the Raiders did not beat ourselves. We hung in the game and forced the Dolphins to beat us. The Dolphins did beat us, but if not for the missed field goal in the third quarter we could’ve won.

This is a Miami team that’s going to win their division. We’re the 2-8 Oakland Raiders. Hanging in against them is encouraging, especially when JaMarcus is able to complete 68.2 percent of his passes. If he can continue doing that going forward, we’ll actually be able to win a game.

That brings us to week 12, in Denver. Just like last week, this is going to be a Broncos team bringing their A-Game, because they’re coming in 6-4 and are in desperate need of a win to keep their wild card playoff hopes alive. As a result, we once again come in as multi-possession road underdogs.

Nobody gives as a chance in the world, but what they didn’t know, and what nobody could’ve known, was that JaMarcus Russell is about to have one of the best QB games in Raiders history.

It doesn’t start out looking any different though, as this game starts with two useless Justin Fargas rushes that dig JaMarcus into a third down hole he can’t dig out of, and it’s a quick punt. The second goes slightly better, but is again sullied for the same reason.

Considering each of Denver’s touches have taken forever, we’re already into the second quarter, but thankfully they haven’t scored on account of one red zone turnover, and one missed field goal, but that luck won’t continue forever. We need to score.

HC Tom Cable again chooses to start a drive with a one yard run (eye roll), but on second and nine there’s a 15 yard connection between JaMarcus and Ashley Lelie that gets us rolling. A 30 yard completion to Zach Miller gets us all the way to the three, where at this point I’m convinced Tom Cable thinks Justin Fargas (the literal worst RB in the NFL) is Priest Holmes or something, because each of the goal line tries go to him. He fails all of them, and we’re held to just a 3-0 lead.

After the Broncos respond by tying the game at three, we get the ball with three minutes left on the clock, and the offensive geniuses on the Oakland sideline decide what better way to conduct the three minute drill than with three runs and a punt.

I’m beginning to understand why the Raiders were so bad for so long.

A punt return touchdown bails out this horrendous offensive coaching, and allows us to go into the half with a 10-3 lead, but what the heck man? If you don’t have faith to let JaMarcus throw the ball, don’t have him in the game, because this is the second worst rushing offence in the NFL. Why does it get so many chances, and JaMarcus gets to touch the ball just six times in the whole first half?

6-6 for 83 yards by the way, so don’t tell me Tom Cable was just ‘feeling the moment’ or whatever garbage NFL coaches tend to say. In fact, I think it’s the opposite. I believe Tom is so unprepared for his pass offence to so thoroughly dominate that he’s got no idea what to do when it does.

It’s pretty simple. Allow them to touch the ball. They’ll do the rest of the work.

The Broncos come out of the half hot, scoring a touchdown to tie the score at ten, but we come out hotter, with our first offensive play of the half being a 51 yard bomb, and though the goal line is still like pulling teeth (giving all three tries to the putrid rush offence) we are able to score to take a 17-10 lead back.

They don’t know it yet, but when the Broncos go three and out and punt this ball back to us, this game is over. At the one minute mark of the third quarter, JaMarcus throws his first incomplete pass of the day (!), but that doesn’t stop the tidal wave. On the second play of the fourth quarter it’s 24-10 Raiders, and from there there’s legitimately no reason to have our pass offence touch the ball again, but we do touch it once more (generating 1.1 EPA converting a key third and five) just for kicks.

I understand that the 2008 Denver Broncos are one of the worst defences in the NFL, but I don’t care. JaMarcus Russell has just generated 15 total EPA on just 15 touches, good for a one flat EPA/Play, in an NFL game.

That is craziness.

I can’t believe that.

Did you remember this happened?

If Tom Cable wasn’t such a fool and let the pass game touch the ball a bit more we could’ve won by 50 instead of 31-10, but this is still crazy. JaMarcus Russell didn’t just take control. He wiped the floor with a team with serious playoff aspirations. Surely you don’t need me to tell you this, but one flat is the highest EPA/Play in Raiders history.

Considering this falls short of the 20 plays required to count on the leaderboards, let’s pretend that JaMarcus touched the ball five more times, and all of them generated 0 EPA, leaving him with exactly 20 plays and 0.75 EPA/Play.

That’s still the best in Raiders history.

That’s right. Rich Gannon never beat it. Derek Carr never beat it. Somebody before EPA existed surely beat it, but this is the best game any Raider has ever played in the new millennium on a per play basis. The closest anybody came to beating it was actually Jason Campbell, with 0.668 EPA/Play against (ironically) Denver in 2010, but that’s not that close to 0.75.

Out of a man who’s struggled so much in his NFL career so far, this is extremely impressive. It’s beyond impressive. I’m running out of words to talk about how great it is, but we must move on. There’s more to say.

Week 13 against Kansas City is ugly, and hinges on a blocked field goal touchdown more than anything either offence did (around 0 EPA each), so I’m not going to talk about it. Week 14 in San Diego is an interesting game. It sees JaMarcus complete nine of his 13 pass attempts, but with two of those incompletions being interceptions, plus a sack fumble, it’s pretty bad, so I’m not going to talk about it either.

The porous Oakland defence ruins what could’ve been an all-timer in week 15. JaMarcus Russell generates positive EPA/Play and Oakland scores four touchdowns against a Bill Belichick defence, a defence that’s notorious for being tough on rookies and second year players, which lets me know that JaMarcus was prepared for this game.

One does not just generate positive EPA on the Patriots by coming in unprepared, which leads me to be skeptical of the narrative that JaMarcus was lazy and refused to prepare at all points in his career. Seeing results like this, I just don’t think that can be true.

Unfortunately, these four touchdowns are all for nought, as they come in a 49-26 loss. Against the Patriots there’s only so much you can do, but imagine the ribbing the New England defence got in that next week of practice from their offensive guys after giving up four TDs to JaMarcus Russell.

Don’t look now, but after generating positive EPA just once in the first ten games of the season, JaMarcus has now done it three times over the last five weeks, plus 0 against Kansas City. These have not all been performances that knock your socks off, but they’re performances good enough to force the Patriots to still be throwing passes in the fourth quarter.

Who would have bet on that when they saw New England vs Oakland on the schedule?

We’re grading on a curve here, because JaMarcus Russell is basically a rookie. He’s only had one NFL offseason and 15 starts under his belt at this point. There is of course the hiccup against San Diego, but rookies have bad games. Decisively beating a team like Denver, staying in touch with a team like Miami, and being close enough to the Patriots that you can at least see their dust in front of you are all encouraging signs.

Week 16 makes this all even better.

The 2008 Houston Texans are a weird team. They have the best QB-WR duo in the NFL in Matt Schaub and Andre Johnson, but basically nothing else. Their defence is just as bad as ours, which provides another good opportunity for our man JaMarcus to show his stuff, and we’re going to need it too, because with Matt Schaub on the opposing sideline, you never know when a shootout may break out.

The first play of this game is an unsuccessful handoff to Justin Fargas (sigh), but the second is a 21 yard pass to Zach Miller. Each of the next two plays are also unsuccessful Justin Fargas handoffs, but on third and nine JaMarcus keeps the chains moving by completing a ten yard ball to Darren McFadden. Once again, each of the next two plays are Fargas handoffs (one of them actually manages to pick up six yards. Hallelujah), but JaMarcus is done with this. He throws a 20 yard touchdown pass to Chaz Schilens (who is that?) to give the Raiders a quick 7-0 lead.

Matt Schaub laughs at this, and within two minutes it’s 7-7.

Perhaps Tom Cable is finally starting to get it, as our second drive features a first down pass (!), and three passes in a row (!!), as we score another three points. It’s amazing what happens when the second worst rush offence in football doesn’t get the majority of the touches. However, the coaches are still scared of Matt Schaub (and rightfully so), and as a result they pull out the almost never seen surprise onside kick, and we get it.

I sit making a really unamused face as each of the first two plays go to Justin Fargas, and again we’re in a third down situation, but I perk up again when JaMarcus once again digs us out of that hole with a simple eight yard throw to Zach Miller.

It feels like we’ve turned a corner when on third down we can just complete simple throws for eight yards. This drive only results in another FG and a 13-7 lead, but it’s things like that, that are noticeable, and make me believe that I’m looking at a different JaMarcus Russell than the one from earlier in this season.

Not much more happens in the first half. The Texans are able to eliminate their deficit, and we go into halftime tied at 13, but once again we’re hanging with a team that’s much better than we are, despite the really poor display of offensive play calling, and coming out of the half it gets even better.

The rush offence actually plays well.

It takes just one pass (although it is a 29 yard touchdown pass) from JaMarcus to pull back out to a 20-13 lead, and when Houston fails to score on their next possession, a punt return touchdown (maybe we should’ve tried Johnnie Higgins on offence. This guy is electric!) expands our lead to 27-13, and we’re actually going to beat the Houston Texans.

JaMarcus touches the ball just four more times in this game. One of these touches is his only sack of the game, but nevertheless, the deficit narrows to just 27-16, and we’ve beaten another pretty good team.

Look at the offensive production breakdown in this game:

The wrong side of the offence got the majority of the plays. Again.

Once again, if the Raiders would’ve thrown more, they would’ve won by more, but the feeling is as euphoric as you can get for a 4-11 football team. That’s now the second real team we’ve beaten. The Raiders haven’t beaten two real teams in the same season since beating both the 9-7 Dallas Cowboys and 10-6 Washington Redskins in 2005. Over the years since 2005, almost every win this franchise has gotten has come over a fellow bottom-feeder.

Not anymore, because JaMarcus Russell is really rounding into form. It’s easy to forget now, but I swear. You can go back and find it on the internet. During this stretch there was serious hype beginning to build around our guy. It looks like he’s finally getting it, and week 17 in Tampa Bay does nothing to dispel this belief.

The 2008 Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a good team. Other than the Dolphins and Patriots, they’re the best team we’ve run into so far. They come with a top ten defence and have really caught fire on offence after switching from Brian Griese to Jeff Garcia at QB. If they can win this game, they’re going to the playoffs. All they have to do to qualify as the final NFC wild card team is defeat the lowly Oakland Raiders at home. They’re 11 point favourites to do so. Easy right?

Wrong.

Just because we’re not going to make it easy on Tampa Bay doesn’t mean we’re going to make it easy on ourselves though. Guess how this game starts for us.

If you guessed three runs and a punt you’re correct.

We at least throw two passes on the second drive, but still no luck trying to move the sticks. This pattern continues on the third touch, and the fourth, and as we exit the first quarter both teams are sitting on just one first down apiece and a 0-0 score. Finally, at the dawn of the second quarter, another Johnnie Higgins punt return finally gets things rolling, starting on the Buccaneer 40.

These are the Raiders, so nothing can happen easily, allowing JaMarcus to touch the ball just once (a 17 yard completion), but inch by inch the rush game is able to score this touchdown and take a 7-0 lead. The Bucs immediately respond to make the score 7-7, and then we go back to punting again. Back and forth and forth and back all the way until 1:49 left in the half.

By this time, even the Raiders have realised how bad Justin Fargas is, so the lead back today is Michael Bush, who is a good player, but not good enough to explain why each of the first two plays of this drive are runs.

What the heck? Does Tom Cable know what the two minute drill is?

It doesn’t matter though. An 18 yard completion to Chaz Schilens (I repeat, who is that?) on third down keeps us moving. A 28 yard ball to Zach Miller gets us to the doorstep, and a three yard TD pass to Schilens gets us into the half with a 14-7 lead.

Wasting 40 seconds to go five yards with two Michael Bush runs was an interesting way to start the two minute drill, but I suppose the seven points on the scoreboard are enough to wipe my tears away, but we best be prepared, because this Buccaneer team needs this game a lot worse than we need it, and they’re going to come out playing desperately to keep their season alive.

What do you know? We begin with punting.

Both teams punt back and forth until a 58 yard bomb from Jeff Garcia to tie the score at 14 changes everything. First 14-14, then 17-14, then 24-14 off a brutal JaMarcus interception (something that’s been absent from his game over this stretch).

After all those good vibes, it’s all of a sudden the 11 minute mark of the fourth quarter and we’re losing. Not just losing, but losing by ten. No fluke occurrence is going to get us out of this. We’re going to have to outplay a playoff calibre team for 11 straight minutes in order to get this win, and we get it off to a good start.

It takes just 1:21 to get back into the end zone for the first time since half with a 12 yard TD pass to Johnnie Higgins, but that only narrows the score to 24-21. We’re going to have to do it again.

At least that’s what I thought.

Tom Cable’s philosophy the whole season of starting every drive with a useless first down run finally bears some fruit, as Michael Bush goes 67 yards into the end zone for a one-play touchdown, and all of a sudden we’re in the lead 28-24, and as Jeff Garcia implodes in the fourth quarter (a performance that will cost him his NFL career as a starter) that means we’ve won. The final will be 31-24.

We’ve cost the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the playoffs, and we’ve put ourselves in a tremendous position going into 2009, with some legitimate hype for the future for the first time in ages.

Now that it’s over, I can ask this question:

Was I hallucinating, or did I just see JaMarcus Russell generate 0.06 EPA/Play on a 0.8 CPOE over a seven week stretch?

0.06 EPA/Play and a 0.8 CPOE are not great, but these are stats that will work. For a player who’s effectively a rookie, these are stats that will really work. These stats are strictly better than rookie Joe Flacco’s 0.015 EPA/Play on a -1 CPOE, for example, and the 2008 Baltimore Ravens won 11 games.

You may say ‘Joe Flacco never went onto be a great QB. That’s a bit of a low bar for a number one overall pick,’ and I agree with that, so let’s look at some players who went on to be great.

Matthew Stafford in 2009? -0.152 EPA/Play on a -7.6 CPOE on an offence just barely worse than this Oakland team. Andrew Luck in 2012? 0.105 EPA/Play, but on a -4.3 CPOE. Ignoring what’s coming in the future, would you rather that version of Andrew Luck, or this version of JaMarcus Russell? It’s a tough call, but an interesting question. Since we’re discussing the Raiders, would you rather have this version of JaMarcus Russell, or what Derek Carr showed in his second year (0.016 EPA/Play, on a -2.8 CPOE)?

I’m not crazy am I?

0.06 EPA/Play on a 0.8 CPOE is a really good seven week stretch for a young QB, especially doing it throwing to absolutely nobody (except for Zach Miller), and especially doing it while addicted to codeine.

I just did my QB rankings list over on Notes through six weeks of the 2024 season, and this 177 play stretch out of JaMarcus Russell is quite similar to Caleb Williams’ 0.058 EPA/Play on a 1.3 CPOE so far in his career. Is anybody ready to give up on Caleb Williams? Or have you interpreted his young career so far as a flash of potential?

I have Caleb Williams 19th on that ranking list, so it’s not like JaMarcus set the world alight in this stretch, but with QBs who have only one offseason under their belt you must grade on a curve. Since the two are one that same curve, I can’t separate JaMarcus Russell from Caleb Williams, except for one thing.

JaMarcus Russell was throwing to Chaz Schilens. Caleb Williams is throwing to DJ Moore.

For all these reasons, I refuse to accept that JaMarcus Russell was always destined to fail. In order to do that, I would have to accept that Caleb Williams was always destined to fail at the NFL level, and that would just be silly. I think JaMarcus had huge potential, and had a good chance to be a really good NFL player in 2009, until the world colluded to bring him down.

JaMarcus’s version of his NFL story is that the deaths of his uncle Mike (the man who used to steal school supplies for him to use) and his uncle Ray Ray (the man he thought of as a second father) back-to-back, both in the 2009 offseason, in conjunction with what’d already happened to his uncle Marcus in 2007, left him mentally destroyed, and nobody in the Raiders organisation (most of whom did not want him there to begin with) did anything to help.

Al Davis wanted to help JaMarcus, but his increasing age meant he could not be around day-to-day as much as he once was, and the coaching staff in place had no love for JaMarcus as a player, and no care for him as a person.

After studying the back half of his 2008 season, I’m inclined to believe this version of the story.

The potential is clear as day, despite play callers going out of their way to put him in bad positions. The Raiders managed to go 3-4 in this stretch, and JaMarcus managed to generate positive EPA/Play, despite facing 11 win New England, 11 win Miami, eight win (but 11.24 Expected Win) San Diego, playoff contender Tampa, playoff contender Denver, and playoff contender Houston all in seven weeks. The only poor competition in this two month period was the two win KC Chiefs, and they made him look worse than anybody, so nobody can say he was coasting on light competition.

The national media did no favours for our man either, as Stephen A. Smith famously calling JaMarcus a ‘fat slob’ on national television did no favours for his mental state, and the media (to this day) loves to float around that blank tape story about how JaMarcus was given a blank tape (in a test by a coach) to see if he’d notice, and he didn’t, meaning he didn’t even watch it.

All of that may apply to 2009, but you don’t just do what JaMarcus did in 2008 without being fully committed. I don’t believe that. To believe that a second year player could play this well without trying his best would be tantamount to believing that the NFL is easy, and I don’t. I believe that (at least in the second half of 2008) he was preparing. I believe he was committed, until a horrific family tragedy pushed him off course in a way he could never come back from, and in a way that some vindictive Raiders coaches did not want him to come back from.

So yes, I know he came into camp in 2009 weighing 300 pounds. I know that his 2009 season is a real contender for the worst season any QB has ever had, and I know he fell off the rails even further after that, but I also know that if he could’ve found a way to get his head back together, if the Raiders could’ve had anybody in the organisation willing to help him do it, if the national media could’ve just backed off a little bit, he had all the potential. At least as much as Caleb Williams.

NFL careers are fragile folks. JaMarcus Russell’s career fell apart based on the deaths of two third parties, neither of whom had anything to do with the football end of this story, but they had everything to do with JaMarcus Russell the human, and without the human there is no football player.

If you’re going to take anything from this article, let it be these three things. First, it’s reductive to say JaMarcus was addicted to cough syrup in such a flippant fashion like the media do. He’s a victim of the opioid epidemic just as much as the kid at your local skate park. Second, he was getting it together as a football player, and did flash some potential in the second half of the 2008 season. Nobody can ever say he didn’t, and if they do, direct them here.

Third, this is a cautionary tale. It’s imperative for teams to worry about the humans that play for them just as much as the players that play for them. JaMarcus Russell was in real need of help in the summer of 2009, and found nobody willing to give him any. JaMarcus Russell is younger than Joe Flacco. If the Raiders had taken any time to worry about the human behind the player, he might’ve still been starting for them as we speak.

Because they didn’t, JaMarcus goes further and further off the rails. The team is forced to cut bait in 2010, and people continuously share graphics like this:

There’s nothing wrong about any of these numbers. They’re all technically correct, but they also fail to understand the full story. We all know the story a lot better now, so I’m going to end this with a call to action.

In the future, please don’t share anything like this. Please don’t laugh at anything like this, and please take up for JaMarcus Russell should you ever get the chance. Remember that he was a player with big potential that just couldn’t convert on it because of a family tragedy and a mental health crisis. Don’t remember Stephen A. yelling about how overweight he is.

The world needs more positivity, and a person like JaMarcus Russell seems like a great place to start.

Thanks so much for reading.