Former Raiders QB JaMarcus Russell has recently been all over social media due to his appearance on The Pivot Podcast and the episode was very insightful.
He’s talked about his regrets if he ran through all of his $35 million, and much more about his tenure in the NFL.
JaMarcus Trenell Russell (born August 9, 1985) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for three seasons with the Oakland Raiders. Highly successful at LSU, where he was MVP of the 2007 Sugar Bowl, he was selected by the Raiders first overall in the 2007 NFL Draft.
After being drafted by Oakland, Russell immediately incited conflict by engaging in a contract holdout until the second week of the 2007 season. His tenure with the Raiders would be defined by inconsistent play and questions over his work ethic, leading to his release in 2010. Due to not meeting the expectations of being the first pick and the short length of his career, he is considered one of the NFL’s biggest busts.
One of the more revealing things Russell talked about was the Raiders reportedly giving him blank tapes to see if he was even watching game film. He addressed that by saying.
“Why would you play a fucking game with my life. Why would you fuck me over? You’re supposed to be teaching me so we can get better, man. I never got that. LSU wouldn’t have done no shit like that. For what? Why we even play that? If it is, so be it.”
I get wanting to test him but it doesn’t really make sense that they wouldn’t help him to try and be better given he was their top pick. If he’s bad that means the team is likely going to be bad and when the team is bad people get fired. So it would make more sense to try and make him better.
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