Aaron Rodgers' Neighborhood » raiders

Jamarcus’s Whereabouts

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:46:24 +0000

So I’m flying back to San Francisco and just read Jamarcus Russell missed offseason workouts today. So I was kinda shocked to see him sitting in the waiting area of my gate at Dulles airport. He’s on a United flight, and apparently flies first class. His jewelry is even crazier in person. I’ll upload my covert pics and add more detail when I get to SF.

UPDATE: Apparently the Raiders claim Russell was late to camp because he was closing a house in Alabama. This seems fishy to me– why take a flight from Alabama to D.C. to San Francisco– seems like a bit of an indirect route to take to get back to the Bay Area. In fact, D.C. is the OPPOSITE direction that Russell would need to have flown to get back to Oakland from Alabama. I call shenanigans on Russell’s excuse (or he sucks at planning flights). This here is an Aaron Rodgers’ Neighborhood exclusive– no one else has the scoop on Russell’s whereabouts when he was supposed to be in camp.

Oh, and to answer everyone’s burning questions, Russell didn’t eat a flight attendant and also didn’t manage to fumble his drink.

Raiders Make Janikowski Richest Kicker in the NFL

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:28:01 +0000

In 2000 the Raiders defied conventional wisdom and selected Sebastian Janikowski, a kicker out of Florida State, with their 1st round pick in the NFL draft. Today, the Raiders signed Janikowski to a 4 year, $16 million deal, with $9 million guaranteed, making Janikowski the highest paid kicker in the NFL. Janikowski did have quite the year this season, converting 26 of 29 field goals this season. And while Janikowski has a strong leg (including connecting on a 61 yard field goal this year), the move doesn’t make a lot of sense for Oakland.

Oakland originally drafted Janikowski because they believed they were a kicker away from being a championship caliber team, losing almost all their games in 1999 by 3 points or less. It made sense to invest so much in a kicker then, since it seemed to be the missing piece in the puzzle for the Raiders. Now, however, the Raiders are far from being a player away from playoff contention, with problems at QB, WR, DT, DE, etc. Resigning a kicker with a large leg and large belly to a huge contract won’t help solve these problems.

Despite the myriad of problems with the Raiders, the team has been more than willing to pour out huge contracts to individual players, signing CB Nnamdi Asomugha and punter Shane Lechler to record deals last year, paying Darius Heyward-Bey higher than the average rookie contract in his draft slot, and now Janikowski. The Raiders also previously signed the overrated DT Tommy Kelly to a giant contract to keep him a Raider. These spending tactics are highly questionable– the Raiders don’t need to be tying up huge amounts of money in individual players, especially special teams players, when they have problems in so many other areas. Spending so much money in the last few offseasons on a small number of players when the team needs a serious makeover may limit the Raiders ability to make more moves in the future to help the team. For example, the Raiders need to resign Richard Seymour, who they traded a first round pick for last season. You think he feels like he needs to seriously get paid after the Raiders made Janikowski the highest paid kicker in the league? I would bet my life on yes.

Also, what the hell is happening with Tom Cable? Raiders still haven’t made an announcement in case you’re wondering…

TNT’s Basketball Announcers Go After JaMarcus Russell’s Jewelry

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:21:25 +0000

Kevin Harlan and Doug Collins from TNT were doing their normal job, covering an NBA game, when the cameras spotted Raiders QB JaMarcus Russell in the audience. Harlan and Collins preceded to call out JaMarcus Russell for his excessive and ridiculous choices in jewelry, pointing out that he might be a better QB if he spent as much time studying game film as he does in the jewelry store. I can say I totally agree: it’s clear Russell is enjoying the ridiculous amount of money he’s getting paid to suck it up as the Raiders QB, while the Raiders aren’t getting much at all in return. Plus look at that jewelery! It looks like Lady Gaga should be wearing it, not someone who’s supposed to lead a football team.

When NBA announcers are disgusted by your presence that’s a bad sign for an NFL QB.

EMBED-JaMarcus Russell’s Bling Holding Back His Game – Watch more free videos

Raiders WTF Watch Continues…Hue Jackson In, Cable Too?

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:15:50 +0000

The Raiders officially hired Hue Jackson, former Ravens QB coach, to be their new offensive coordinator. Previously, Tom Cable was both the head coach and offensive coordinator, so while this is a cutback on his responsibilities, it must mean he’s staying right?

Well, not so fast.

Apparently the Raiders are still unwilling to say that Cable will be the head coach next year, with Senior Executive John Herrera saying that staff decisions are “still an ongoing process.” It seems likely that Cable will stay at this point, as Adam Schefter from ESPN is reporting that a source in the Raiders organization has said that Davis will retain Cable. Also, the two assistants recently hired by Davis both have connections to Cable: Jackson coached with Cable at Cal State Fullerton in 1990 and Cal in 1996, and new defensive line coach Mike Waufle also worked with Cable at Cal in the 90’s. Cable is currently at the Senior Bowl scouting college players, which seems like something a guy keeping his job would do.

So given that, what the hell is Al Davis doing? I once again have no idea. If you’ve made a decision to retain the guy, why not just say it? The Raiders currently have a major PR problem and it announcing that Cable is staying would get them out of the news. But, maybe Davis wants the Raiders to stay in the news: as they say “all press is good press.” The only reason I can think for the delay is that Davis is still poking around, hoping that someone he likes better will, for some godforsaken reason, want to coach his team. I don’t think that’s happening. Cable’s coming back, but the Oakland Towelies give me no clue as to why the hell it’s taking so long.

Raiders WTF Watch 2010: I Have No Idea What’s Goin on Right Now Towelie Style

admin — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 00:41:44 +0000

So a funny thing happened on the way to Hue Jackon’s interview to become the offensive coordinator for the Oakland Raiders…he may atually have been told that he’s also intervewing for the head coaching position. Hue Jackson is currently the quarterbacks coach for the Baltimore Ravens, and is credited with helping Joe Flacco develop from a rookie into a quality NFL QB. Regardless of whether or not Jackson is actually interviewing for the head coaching position, the fact that the Raiders are talking to him indicates that they are interested in keeping JaMarcus Russell, hoping that a quarterback guru can come in and save him. I have a feeling Al Davis is interviewing people waiting for what he wants to hear, which is for a coach to come in and believably say “I can fix JaMarcus Russell” with confidence. Of course, anyone interviewing for the job will tell Davis that– they’re trying to get hired, not piss the guy off and tell him his huge multimillion dollar first pick in the draft QB is a bust!

The Raiders keep saying that Davis and Cable are in discussions about the future of the Raiders, and keep denying that anyone is interviewing for the head coaching job. But where there’s smoke there’s fire, and there are just so many reports about head coaching interviews going on out there. I may have clue what the Raiders are doing, but I guarantee that if Tom Cable is saying that he’s given up on Russell he is as good as gone. For now, the Raiders might as well change their mascot to Towelie, because they have no idea what’s going on right now.

I Have No Idea What the Raiders Are Doing.

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:01:52 +0000

Rumor has itthat Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders have been interviewing potential replacements for current head coach Tom Cable for the last two weeks. Problem is they haven’t exactly fired Tom Cable yet. In fact, for the last two weeks rumors kept surfacing that Davis and Cable were set to meet about his future, only those meetings kept not happening. At least two people interviewed by the Raiders include former Giants coach Jim Fassell, who has publicly stated he wants to coach the Raiders, and Marc Trestman, former Raiders offensive coordinator.

This may be the very reason that Buffalo G.M. Buddy Nix commented, while introducing Chan Gailey yesterday: “Don’t ever think you can’t fill coaching jobs, even if they’re bad. Oakland gets a lot of calls.” I don’t understand how Al Davis can keep stringing along Cable by not telling him if he’s fired while interviewing other candidates. Who would ever want to coach for this team? Al Davis runs through head coaches like Tiger runs through mistresses. This is just another example of how Al Davis clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore. He can’t even make up his own mind about who should coach his own team, let alone make a good pick in the first round (*Darius Heyward-Bey*).

Tom Cable deserves another season. He managed to lead the Raiders to victories over the Bengals, Eagles, Broncos, and Steelers later in the season with an assortment of second/third tier quarterbacks. Cable didn’t draft JaMarcus Russell, and shouldn’t take the fall for his inadequacies. If Cable goes, it means that Al Davis isn’t willing to say that he made a mistake by picking JaMarcus Russell and likely won’t part ways with him. If that’s the case, good luck Oakland, no matter who the coach is.