Cary Edmondson-US PRESSWIRE

Last night Rock Cartwright was honored with the Commitment To Excellence award as voted on by his teammates. For Cartwright it marks the second consecutive year he’s gained the honro. As you might recall the last man to win the award twice was Justin Fargas with his second one coming mere days after the Raiders severed ties with the fearless runner.

Cartwright is in a similar boat as an unrestricted free agent. Unlike Fargas he hasn’t been told by the team that his services are no longer necessary. However he hasn’t been told he’ll be retained either.

Life in the NFL is cruel. No other sports industry so blatantly displays the clear cut line between business and entertainment. Fargas found out about that and more recently the likes of Peyton Manning have even learned the harsh lesson.

Fargas never played in another NFL game. He briefly was in camp with the Broncos but never caught on. Cartwright will likely have suitors somewhere in the league should the Raiders let him walk. Though he plays running back Cartwright has carved his niche on special teams. He’s also invaluable in the locker room as evident by his teammates twice voting him as the Commitment award recipient in his two years as a Raider.

How much Cartwright’s presence matters to Reggie McKenzie is yet to be seen.

Even with Darren McFadden’s injury absence Cartwright saw almost no action as a runner. Instead the Raiders leaned almost exclusively on Michael Bush with occasional appearances by rookie Taiwan Jones. That fact alone could be reason enough for McKenzie to part ways with Cartwright. His salary isn’t so great that the Raiders will save any serious cash without Rock but these days Oakland needs every dime they can get.

Much like Fargas, Cartwright takes the high road when discussing his future with the franchise. He understands the nature of this business yet doesn’t seem to be phased by it at all.

Going forward the Raiders will need locker room leaders like Cartwright in order to build a solid foundation. Not everything that makes for a great football team can be equated to fantasy football production or ESPN analysis. More often than it it’s the things that are shared privately by the players and coaches that creates champions. The Raiders can surely win without Cartwright but doing so in class could prove difficult.

Kelley L Cox-US PRESSWIRE

Earlier in the week I listed all the reasons why the Raiders were prepared to let Michael Bush walk away as a free agent. Yesterday the team pretty much spelled that out with the use of the franchise tag on Tyvon Branch.

At this point it’s just a numbers game.

It’s just that simple.

The franchise number for Branch comes in around $6-million, for Bush it would be about a $1-million more. Mere pennies to Al Davis but to Reggie McKenzie it might as well be a Dr. Evil’s worth of a million bucks.

More than just the savings, we’re also talking about the difference between a full-time player in Branch and a part-time contributor in Bush. I don’t want that to sound disrespectful to Bush in anyway as his 2011 was anything but part-time labor. Part-timers aren’t getting 25+ touches a game, pushing Bo Jackson out of the franchise record book or playing injured cause they know the team needs them.

Bush did all of that and then some last year. But as we all know Oakland, California, is Darren McFadden country. Even when he’s injured and Bush is playing well all the talk is about how soon Run DMC will be back on the field.

McFadden is beast of a different breed. He’s that classic car that only runs well a few times a year but on those occasions there is nothing like hearing the motor hum and the tires squeal on a Sunday afternoon.

For 2012 McFadden would have made less than Bush had the Raiders tagged their talented backup. Even if you’re putting your chips on that sure bet of McFadden missing more time next season it’s just not good business sense to keep that much money tied to one position on the team. Not when young running backs emerge from obscurity every season in the NFL like so many supermodels that are Sports Illustrated pinups today and Zumba instructors tomorrow.

Not when McKenzie is swimming in a sea of over-committed contracts.

Stop for a moment and really think about the state of this franchise. Even if Mr. Davis were still running the show he too would have to make tough decisions. Obviously Davis didn’t add the salaries of Carson Palmer and Aaron Curry to the books. No matter what though, his accountants would still have been mired in a salary cap quagmire no thanks to those phat cat dealings done without discretion.

Therefore the Michael Bush dilemma never was one. McKenzie’s hands are tied. Keep throwing money at an offense that is a top ten unit and slash more salary from a bottom-dwelling defense. That’s not a formula for success.

Having Bush in silver and black was an absolute luxury for the Raiders. They got his services at a steep discount. Chances are they’ll get a similar deal again. What is true in the business world holds equally true in the NFL. Why pay a veteran top dollar when there’s a hungry college grad out there willing to do the same job on the cheap?

Finding another Bush isn’t as easy as shopping for bacon at Safeway…right Romo? Fact of the matter is the Raiders could have easily dropped four of their last five games with Taiwan Jones missing blitzes as they did with Bush racking up 100-yard games.

It’s just that simple.

What else is simple is the logic on running backs. Check the facts and you’ll see the average NFL runner is lucky to get 2 and ½ years of pro ball. Justin Fargas was once a 1,000-yard rusher. Harvey Williams too.

Bush gets nothing but love from Raider Nation for his services. He’s worked hard to get into a position to get his due. He shouldn’t get caught up in silly sentiment. This is a business and it is now or never for Bush to get his. The Raiders can’t pay what he’s worth but somebody else can and will.

It’s just that simple.

Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE

With NFL free agency set to begin in the very near future it looks like the Oakland Raiders will once again be on the sideline. Not since the ill-advised Al Davis spending tsunami of ’08 have the Raiders actually been players in free agency. Instead free agency lately has been limited to giving hefty raises to players before they hit the open market and signing marginal veterans such as Khalif Barnes and Kevin Boss.

This year, even with all the swirling change around the East Bay, won’t be much different.

What will be much different is Oakland’s approach to retaining their players. Mr. Davis never shied away from paying whatever price it took to keep his men in Silver and Black. I don’t pretend to be an Alameda insider but I’m guessing that Davis didn’t see much value it keeping Michael Bush around.

Sure, Davis rolled the dice on drafting the talented but injured prospect. Davis was willing to pay Bush for an entire year while all he did was rehab on the Raiders dime. Davis was the one who insisted on keeping Bush despite the constant inquires from teams seeking to trade for his services.

Davis was also the man that didn’t even try to talk contract with Bush last offseason. Davis was more than willing to give Bush the highest contract tender possible for a restricted free agent but nothing more.

With or without Al Davis in the picture the Raiders were headed to this very moment of deciding on keeping Bush or letting him walk.

The gamble wasn’t much of one at all. There was every reason to think Darren McFadden, at some point, was going to miss time due to injury. It’s happened every year he’s been in the NFL. What else has happened is that during those moments when McFadden is out Bush has stepped in and stepped up. The Raiders knew there was a great chance of Bush putting together a career year thus raising his value on the open market.

Wouldn’t you know it? Guess what happened? Michael Bush put together his best season as a pro including a record setting game against the San Diego Chargers.

Reggie McKenzie didn’t put himself in this bind but he’s the one to deal with it now. Like so many things in life, the easiest way to deal is to do nothing at all.

In my estimation the Oakland Raiders will do little to try and retain Bush. For the $7-million it would cost to franchise him the team could go out and get themselves a true number one corner. For the number of years Bush is seeking and the amount of carries he’ll expect he’d be better suited going elsewhere.

This relationship has run its course.

Bush has been fantastic in the absence of McFadden. However in his first season as a feature back you saw what the wear and tear did to the former Louisville Cardinal. He, like the rest of the roster, wore down. Chalk that up to whatever you want to but I never saw Justin Fargas run out of gas when Lane Kiffin was slamming him into a brink wall 25+ times a game.

To be sure McFadden can’t be counted on to remain healthy. But that alone cannot make Bush an affordable luxury. Not to mention between the two there is no comparison.

Bush is a remarkable athlete with plenty left in the tank. Still, he’s nothing close to being the explosive game breaker McFadden is. Bush can wear down a defense then explode whereas McFadden can take a game over with his first touch. Look around the league and you’ll see plenty of runners that resemble Bush but few that are McFadden-like.

This is not meant to disrespect Bush in any way. This is just the business of football. A business Bush got a taste of last offseason. Let’s not forget how long it took Bush to sign his tender and report to camp. He wasn’t a holdout by any means but he was the last man to show up. That should say something about how the franchise viewed him then and how he felt about the way his situation was handled as well.

These days the Raiders are all about cutting costs. Bush doesn’t, in any way, factor into that equation. He’s a quality back for sure but in Oakland is nothing more than an insurance policy. In due time the Raiders will be at the crossroads with McFadden too. Don’t be surprised if we’re having a similar conversation then depending on how his health issues go.

Such is the life of an NFL running back. With or without Bush the Raiders could have missed the playoffs last year. That will factor in heavily on many of the roster moves that are coming. A $7-million security blanket just isn’t in the cards on McKenzie’s watch.