Mark Kreidler
In so many words.

Note: Here’s my latest for ESPN.com.  The link: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?page=kreidler/100510

JaMarcus Russell to another NFL team?  Absolutely.  No doubt about it.  If not today or tomorrow, then soon, and for a while longer, at least.

You see the beauty here to the other 31 teams in the league: Russell has been pre-disastered.  He could only ever derail one franchise, and that deed is done.  Taken strictly on the basis of whether or not he might someday contribute to an offense, evaluated solely as a free-agent signing with no special portfolio, Russell will get a look.  Several looks, possibly.

It’s smooth running from here on in.  The storm has passed.  Low buzz equals low risk.

And low risk almost always equals NFL curiosity, which is all Russell will need, really: a team with enough curiosity – and precisely the right amount of ego – to want to take a gander.  It’ll happen.  That’s how the NFL rolls.

Oakland’s release of Russell last week was noted primarily for the astounding rate at which the former LSU star was paid to fail, which is both the glory and the blood-spatter of fame.  At $39.1 million over three lost seasons, the cash-to-heartburn ratio was historically high.  Of course, that’s the Raiders’ problem, right?

Exactly so.  When Russell was made the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 NFL draft, he could only become a titanic failure for one organization, and that was the team that drafted him.  Sure, the NFL itself might wear a shiner resulting from Russell’s face plant – and in fact the QB’s career “arc” already is being held up as Exhibit A in the case against the current rookie salary structure.  But that’s the risk you run with any top draftee, be it more or less obvious.  (Don’t forget how many experts rushed forward to authenticate the Raiders’ selection of Russell as a great one on draft day ‘07, though I know how much those experts wish you would.)

As for the remaining teams, not so much risk.  The worst that can happen to any GM or head coach now is that he lobbies for the right to bring Russell into camp for a few days or weeks, and the thing goes bad.  At the rate they’d be paying him – having cleared waivers over the weekend, Russell now can be signed at the NFL minimum for a fourth-year player, which is $620,000 for a full season or any pro-rated portion thereof – he stacks up as a minimal risk.  He’s just a guy you bring in.

People are looking for a natural fit for Russell right now, which is crazy.  There is no natural fit for a guy who just flamed out on a potential $68 million windfall (he “only” collected the $39.1 mil).  But that’s not to say that, eventually, some pieces won’t fall into place.  They certainly will.

There are a couple of great factors working here that people may fail to take into account.  First and foremost, you could never go broke overestimating the ego of pro personnel people.  Ego is what they do.  The history of sports is absolutely choked by cases of players – baseball, basketball, football, hockey players – getting cut by one team and almost immediately picked up by somebody else.  Occasionally it’s a simple matter of need vs. availability, but just as often it’s the He-didn’t-perform-for-them-but-he-will-for-us hubris that drives so many executives through their days.

JaMarcus Russell almost ate his way out of the league while cat-napping through team meetings?  Yeah, maybe, but that wasn’t when I was in charge.  I’ll get his attention.  (Clap your hands if this means you, Coach Shanahan.)

Second, and this is critical, don’t forget the Raider Discount.  This is a much simpler premise.  It holds that, since Russell was in Oakland and not anywhere else in the NFL, you can’t really tell much from the fact that things ultimately went blooey.

People around the Raiders are used to hearing this.  Randy Moss was terrific in Minnesota, hideously terrible in Oakland, and then suddenly fine again in New England.  DeAngelo Hall was a Pro Bowler in Atlanta, a colossal eight-game bust in Oakland, and then suddenly a solid contributor again in Washington.

None of that has much to do with Russell, really.  The Raiders, it’s true, had a lousy offensive line and a suspect receiving corps for much of the time Russell was around, and they switched head coaches and offensive coordinators.  But all of that adds to less than half the responsibility for the Big Fail, and JaMarcus – undermotivated, late to meetings and generally lacking anything resembling field leadership – is on the hook for the lion’s share of the blame.

Still, that may not be how it’s perceived around the league.  The equivalent of Operation Save Ferris already is under way.  Former Raiders coach Lane Kiffin, who did not want to draft Russell, nevertheless called him “a great kid” and told the L.A. Times that being cut from Oakland “could be the best thing for him.”  Russell’s former college coach, Les Miles, and his offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, have sent ringing good wishes across the country via interview.

When the point of departure is the Raiders, that is, ye olde discount comes into play.  Combine it with a healthy splash of executive ego, the absence of any real franchise risk and a cost factor that is more than reasonable by NFL standards given Russell’s skill set, and you’ve got the makings of an easy invitation to camp.  See you down the road, big fella.  Your story doesn’t have an ending yet.

Mark Kreidler is a longtime contributor to ESPN.com.  His most recent book, <a href=http://www.amazon.com/Six-Good-Innings-Became-Little/dp/006147357X> “Six Good Innings,”</a> was named one of the Top 10 Sports Books of 2009 by Booklist.  Reach him at mark@markkreidler.com.

Note: This piece appeared at ESPN.com.  Here’s the link: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?page=kreidler/100503

By Mark Kreidler

Special to ESPN.com

The great thing about the Raiders is that they can still surprise you.  Well, not you.  But they can still surprise someone.

“Someone,” for purposes of today’s discussion, would be erstwhile Redskins passer Jason Campbell, who got off the phone with Raiders officials a couple of weeks ago feeling quite certain that they were trading for him in order to make him their starting quarterback.  That may yet happen.  It certainly should happen.

But if Campbell expects a smooth transition from the JaMarcus Russell “era” to whatever comes next, he reveals himself as a person who – and I’m strictly guessing here – has never read, heard or discussed one thing about the Raiders in the modern history of the franchise.

In other words: Sure, it’s a circus.  You saw the big top as you approached the grounds, right?

Nobody does distraction like the Raiders.  It is a calling card.  They’re incredibly good at it.  When the trade for Campbell went through, the immediate assumption was that Russell’s career in Oakland was over – and it was just a daffy assumption on every count.  Again, you’ve got to know your Raider history.

One: Al Davis still owns the team.  Two: Davis has uttered virtually no words critical of Russell, whom he made the No. 1 overall pick in 2007.  Three: Davis publicly backed Russell over Lane Kiffin in 2008, famously intoning, “He is a great player.  Get over it and coach this team on the field.”

And four: Al Davis still owns the team.  We did mention that, didn’t we?

Cutting Russell, who has a $6.45 million payday coming if he stays on the Oakland roster, makes too much sense for it to actually happen in what football people might consider a timely manner.  Memo to Jason Campbell: You’re on Raider Standard Time now.  Things happen when they happen, or they don’t happen at all, or – well, use your imagination.  Take your top pizza dream, amplify it times a dozen or so, and you’re still scratching the surface of the essential strangeness that is Davis’s organization right this very moment.

When Tom Cable answered a question at the end of last season by making it clear that he thought the Raiders were a playoff team if only he hadn’t been saddled with Russell at quarterback, it was widely assumed that he’d get whacked.  Nope.

When Cable subsequently survived weeks of speculation with his job intact, it was widely assumed that he had won the JaMarcus argument with Davis, or at least won over Davis to his way of thinking.  But there was Russell at mini-camp last weekend, ostensibly competing for the starting job.  And Tom Cable was the one who had to stand there and say so.

It was amazing burlesque, the whole thing.  Russell, rumored to be tipping the scales at close to 300 pounds during the off-season, showed up looking close to his normal weight of 260 or 265.  He had a good enough first day to stir a little buzz among the cognoscente, but those who stayed for the rest of the OTA slowly began to recognize the Russell they knew, saying he regressed a bit with each practice session.

And the Raiders managed to make the situation 20 times more bizarre than it needed to be, because that’s what they do.  They assigned Eddie Anderson, a former safety and current assistant, to basically bodyguard Russell from the media, with Anderson swatting down almost every relevant question that came Russell’s way.

It was a surreal scene, with Russell beginning to answer questions only to have Anderson jump in and cut off the conversation.  When a reporter asked about the possibility that Russell would agree to restructure his huge contract, Anderson quickly replied, “We’re not discussing that, either.”  But Russell tried to answer anyway, saying, “No,” loudly over Anderson’s protesting voice.  When a question turned to Russell’s weight, Anderson simply ended the interview.

Where it goes from here is unclear, although the educated guess is that Oakland will eventually make the call to cut Russell and save the cash.  But don’t bank on that.  Al Davis runs this show, and he is contrarian to the core.

P.S. This is your team, Jason Campbell.  Don’t waste a minute: Start getting used to the strangeness now.

Mark Kreidler is a longtime contributor to ESPN.com.  His most recent book, <a href=http://www.amazon.com/Six-Good-Innings-Became-Little/dp/006147357X> “Six Good Innings,”</a> was named one of the Top 10 Sports Books of 2009 by Booklist.  Reach him at mark@markkreidler.com.