By Tim Kawakami
Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 11:47 am in Raiders, NFL.
This entry could be rendered null and stupid in just a few hours, and those are the fun ones to type, I must admit.
This is a stupid blog item… if Lane Kiffin announces that, gee whiz, it’s time to start playing JaMarcus Russell now that the Raiders season is lost and Josh McCown is hurt and everybody else is lousy.
Doubt Kiffin says any of that, however. I’m betting that he keeps saying what he has been saying, loss after loss after loss after loss after loss: It’s not time to play Russell and I’ll let you know when that time is, and it might not be for a while.
I think I started calling for Russell to get playing time about a month ago, so obviously you know where I stand: Josh McCown? Daunte Culpepper? I think a good coaching staff can make the situation calm enough for a QB as talented and raw as Russell.
Because he is incredibly talented. And yes, very raw. But the Raiders are blocking OK for the passing game–which makes McCown’s and Culpepper’s struggles even more ridiculous.
108 total yards passing against Chicago yesterday? Absurd.
Oh, and one LARGE POINT to make right off the bat: I believe AL DAVIS WANTS RUSSELL TO PLAY, but is letting Kiffin make this call. For now.
Davis is the guy who drafted Russell, who is paying him $32M guaranteed, and who loves the deep ball that Russell throws better than anybody.
Davis loves stars, and Russell is a star. Hey, we’re calling for Russell to play when we’ve never seen him, ever, in a Raider uniform under center. Therefore: A STAR. Russell is the starry-est player the Raiders have.
Davis created the Raiders’ star system… then watched it blow apart with Randy Moss, Charles Woodson, et al.
This is Kiffin’s call this year–Davis is allowing him that grace period.
Kiffin is holding the line on Russell, probably at least for another two or three games or maybe more, when such a large percentage of Raiders watchers are dying to see Russell.
Here’s why Kiffin’s holding Russell out:
1. Kiffin never thought Russell was the best player in the draft, didn’t think it when Al Davis selected the big QB No. 1 overall, and sure doesn’t think so now.
Summary: KIFFIN DIDN’T WANT TO DRAFT RUSSELL, which Russell also knows.
I’ve written it before, had it confirmed several times by NFL sources, and I think it’s the biggest part of Russell’s slow unveiling now.
Big monster QB arms don’t impress Kiffin as much as checkdowns, neat little scrambles and leadership skills. Kiffin isn’t a “vertical” game guy, at all. He’s the opposite. He’s a dink-dunk, methodical drive guy.
That’s sort of what he sees in McCown, therefore McCown has been his No. 1 since he walked onto Raider property.
McCown’s not a good or even mediocre NFL QB, but given Kiffin’s options, McCown is the closest thing to what he likes.
Remember, the Raiders brought Brady Quinn in for negotiations when the Raiders were also negotiating with Russell, before the No. 1 selection. (Calvin Johnson was a thought with the pick, too.)
Quinn, if you think about it, is much more comparable to Kiffin’s USC guy, Matt Leinart, than Russell could ever be. You know, the read the defense-calm-leadership QB… Russell isn’t that and may never be that, though I’d love to see if he could develop into that.
I think Kiffin just doesn’t see it happening for Russell for a long time.
2. Russell’s training camp holdout killed his development for this season, and Kiffin really didn’t mind that.
In fact, as I typed back in August, I think Kiffin told Davis early in summer that Russell wasn’t ready to help the team at any point in 2007, so why not hold the line on his salary demands right up to the regular season?
That’s exactly what happened–and the prophecy played out: Russell held out all the way to the regular season, he got way behind, and Kiffin has every excuse not to play him, even in November–Hey, he missed camp! He’s not ready!
3. Kiffin’s making a point to Al, and Al’s letting him make it.
The point: Things have gone all haywire here for four years doing it your way, let’s do it MY WAY, and that includes keeping the Big Star No. 1 Pick QB on a slow path to playing time.
Hey, this isn’t about Al being less hands-on than he used to be. Long ago, he let Mike Shanahan have his way… for a little more than a year. THEN BOOM, he was gone. He let Jon Gruden generally have his way for most of four years.
Al will let Kiffin do it his way, or mostly his way, until he sees it isn’t working. Hey Lane, you might want to win some games at the end of this season, I’m just saying.
4. Great point: Kiffin needs to win some games, and Russell isn’t the guy who’ll necessarily do that this year.
I’m not sure McCown or Culpepper (or even Andrew Walter) are guys who’ll win games, but Russell under center, whenever it happens, will automatically lead to some horrible decisions and game-losing mistakes. Absolutely. We all know that going into it.
Kiffin is still fighting for 6-10 or 5-11 at the very least, and if he plays Russell, he’s thinking this could possibly be 3-13 and Kiffin’s out the door, anyway.
5. Kiffin’s making a point to his veteran players, many of whom don’t want to abandon all and let a shaky rookie grab the reins just yet.
Some of the players, it should be pointed out, want to see Russell out there because they’ve seen enough of McCown and Culpepper. Many, or perhaps most, don’t want to throw the season into the hands of a rookie who might start throwing multiple passes directly to the other team.
If Kiffin’s building something here–and that’s a big IF–he wants to bulid it through the locker room, and that hasn’t been done here since Gruden. Kiffin wants the players to look at each other and find strength, not point fingers at the coach or the management or the rookie QB and say, “What the hell, time to quit.”
That means Kiffin’s going to keep to his principles–he made a big point yesterday about Pete Carroll sticking to his principles when USC started 2-5 in Carroll’s first season–and the showiest way to do that is to keep the Big Monster Rookie QB tethered to the sidelines.
There other examples, of course: LaMont Jordan, kicking it to Devin Hester, believing in Sebastian Janikowski, banishing Quentin Moses… But the Rookie QB is the Biggest One.
6. Kiffin is stubborn. That’s a fairly good thing–Bill Parcells is incredibly stubborn, Belichick, Tony Dungy, Marty Schottenheimer, Al Davis his ownself…
You don’t lead men by being wishy-washy, and Kiffin is striving to prove how well he can lead large athletes into the field of play.
He’s sticking to his guns on the Russell Issue.
7. Kiffin doesn’t think Russell is one of those guys you can just throw out there and watch him figure out a way to win.
This is why you hear Kiffin talk about the Raiders’ offense needing to be stable and strong around the QB before he puts Russell in there, though, barring the return of Cliff Branch, Dave Casper, Art Shell and Jim Otto in their primes, I don’t know how that’s exactly going to happen.
You listen to Kiffin talk about how cautious he has to be about Russell’s psyche and talents, and you’d think Kiffin was talking about Alex Smith or Tim Couch.
Kiffin has repeatedly said he doesn’t want to have to “rebuild” Russell if Russell experiences disaster in his first go-’round. Kiffin has said that the offense around Russell is just as important as Russell’s play.
But that’s suggesting that Russell isn’t good enough to make everybody else better. That he’s not as good as Vince Young was as a rookie, or John Elway (who went in and out his first year), or Peyton Manning (I’ll give Kiff this one) or Donovan McNabb (starter by mid-Nov. of his rookie season).
This suggests Russell’s a Ryan Leaf or David Carr (ruined on a bad team) or Culpepper (almost no time as a rookie).
I think Russell’s better than Leaf or Carr (or Smith or Couch), and he’s probably better than Culpepper. Heck, Davis is paying him $32M, he should be better. I think he’s MUCH better.
I also don’t think Russell would be ruined if things are bad when he plays, though obviously that’s a risk.
Plus, that Raiders offensive line is showing that it can hold up relatively well in the pass protection, which negates the biggest concern about Russell’s health.
But this is Kiffin’s thought process…
8. Kiffin’s coaching for his next job.
Basically, that’s Points 1-7 added up, but thought I’d end things with the big picture point. I’ve typed it before… Kiffin has been around, his mentor is Carroll, his dad Monte works for Gruden now.
Kiffin knows that Gruden got the most out of this Raiders team as is possible in the late-Davis era, and then got the hell out when he could.
Gruden did it by basically running his own operation with Bruce Allen, and Davis let it happen because it was making the Raiders a good football team.
Bill Callahan was a poor man’s Gruden… gone after two seasons.
Norv Turner tried to work within the Davis framework–disaster.
Art Shell tried to re-formulate the old Davis style–complete disasters.
Kiffin wants to do it the Gruden way–he and Mark Jackson are running an independent operation in Davis’ franchise, and Davis is letting them do it, because he sees things he likes.
Eventually, they are going to have to win some games. Like: NOW.
But for Kiffin to survive his time in Raiderland, he has to do it his way. He knows that. And his way… is to hold back on playing JaMarcus Russell, for as long as he can.
