How the JaMarcus Russell pick still plagues the Raiders nearly 20 years later
By Levi Dombro
Near misses in the draft
There have been several chances for the Raiders to select their quarterback of the future, but they have neglected to do so at every turn.
Without being unreasonable and assuming that the Raiders should have had a crystal ball or that a team would blindly accept their trade proposal, there were still a plethora of viable options in the draft that the Raiders simply ignored.
In 2008, the Raiders had the fourth overall pick and selected Darren McFadden, who was a bright spot for Raider Nation in some of the team's darkest years. But in his seven years with the Raiders, he only reached 1,000 yards one time and never made so much as a Pro Bowl.
Joe Flacco was drafted in the middle of the first round in that same draft, and while there were some concerns about him coming from a small school, that did not deter the eventual Super Bowl-winning Ravens. Flacco was a Super Bowl MVP and is still playing well in the NFL this season.
Sure, the team had just drafted JaMarcus Russell a season before, but let's not act like the team had high expectations for him at this point. The team added Culpepper and McCown when Russell was a rookie and brought back the putrid duo of Walter and Tuiasosopo to back him up in 2008. Flacco easily could have been a Raider.
In 2011, the team traded away their first-round pick to acquire Richard Seymour from the Patriots. Seymour was an absolute beast for Oakland, but he wasted some great years of his career because the Raiders had nobody under center.
With the pick they traded to the Patriots, they could have drafted either Andy Dalton or Colin Kaepernick. Dalton's success early in his career is the entire reason that the Raiders ended up trading a first and second-rounder to the Bengals for Carson Palmer just a year later, and Kaepernick led the 49ers to a Super Bowl.
Instead, the team rolled with Jason Campbell and Kyle Boller, and they were forced to trade two picks to get Palmer off the couch midway through the season. Another fatal error.
In 2018, the Raiders had perhaps their most inconceivable whiff of all. With the 15th pick in the draft, they selected Kolton Miller when Lamar Jackson was still on the table.
Instead of going all-in on the eventual two-time (and counting) MVP, the team stuck with Carr, who mustered four wins that season. Jackson is already one of the greatest and most dynamic quarterbacks in league history, and he could have been a Raider.
In 2019, the team had three first-round picks that they could have leveraged to move up from the fourth pick up to No. 1, where they could have selected Kyler Murray. Instead, the team stuck with Carr after consecutive bad seasons, and drafted Clelin Ferrell fourth overall.
For fans who may point out that the team would have never drafted Josh Jacobs if they traded those picks away, I say that David Montgomery, Alexander Mattison, and Devin Singletary were all still available in the second round that year.
Oh, and the team still would have drafted Maxx Crosby in the fourth round. What a transformational draft that could have been.
In 2020, the team had two first-round picks, which they could have used to try and trade up for either Tua Tagovailoa or Justin Herbert. It is unlikely that the Dolphins or Chargers were willing to let an AFC foe move up, however.
But, even considering that the Raiders stayed put at No. 12 and No. 19, they had two chances to draft Jordan Love, who went 26th to the Packers. If he's good enough to eventually replace Aaron Rodgers, surely he is good enough to replace Carr.
Even if the team wanted to wait until day 2 to select a quarterback in this draft, they had three third-round picks that they could have used to move up into the late second round to draft Jalen Hurts.
But Jon Gruden and Co. thought they knew better, and drafted bonafide stars like Lynn Bowden Jr., Bryan Edwards, and Tanner Muse instead. Yikes.
There were rumors in 2023 that the team wanted to trade up for CJ Stroud. They were just a few picks away in the third round of that same draft from grabbing Hendon Hooker.
Any of these selections could have altered the course of the franchise indefinitely, but in typical Raider fashion, they were unaggressive in acquiring a quarterback through the draft.
It's time for the franchise to put behind the trauma of the failed JaMarcus Russell pick, and draft a quarterback in the first round next year, at all costs.
It's perceived that the Raiders are a snake-bit team and that they could never luck into a player like Tom Brady, Dak Prescott or Brock Purdy.
But they'll never know unless they try.