I hate excuse makers.
Any time something goes bad in your life, the first thing you should do is look in the mirror. The mirror doesn’t lie, you can’t lie to yourself, you know deep down if you are responsible for your downfall or not. That is why getting over the denial, is the first step to changing your situation from a negative to a positive.
There are some bad people in the NFL. Many of them you will never know how bad, because you only see, what they want to show to the public.
For all the things I have heard about JaMarcus Russell over the years, I never heard he was a bad person. You heard things about JaMarcus being lazy, not prepared, out of shape and etc, but never a bad guy. That doesn’t excuse the fact, he had an opportunity to be great and didn’t take advantage of it.
Life is hard, I feel for JaMarcus when he talks about his uncle dying, who he was very close to. That would have an effect on anyone, but I believe what JaMarcus understands now, is that he should have used that to motivate him, not hold him back.
I am glad that ESPN showed this different side of JaMarcus, because everything isn’t black and white. There are shades of gray that are often are never seen. Maybe the people who were burning his jerseys (which is pathetic by the way), will see him in a different light. You can tell he isn’t over the deaths of his family members and how he let a golden opportunity in the NFL slip through his fingers. You can see it in his face, it looks like he has aged 20 years, since he last played for the Raiders
When you play Madden on your PS3 or XBOX if something goes wrong, you lose a game or have a bad season, you simply reboot and start over from the beginning. Real life though isn’t like Madden, there are times you only get one shot at doing what you truly love, there is no reset button.
JaMarcus had a shot and even while dealing with tough circumstances, he blew that opportunity. He is trying to hit the reset button, but it might be too late.
I urge you though to watch the video, it gives you a little insight on what he went through and what he is going through now, for another shot in the NFL