Boomer Esiason of CBS recently lifted the lid on the problems with Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell. Esiason said on Sunday’s The NFL Today that Russell has been “fined heavily” for showing up late for multiple meetings, being overweight, and missing one meeting.
A league source tells us that it’s even worse.
Per the source, Russell has missed multiple meetings, and that he has missed multiple other activities. His behavior has been described to us as a “pattern not an aberration.”
It’s a horrible development regarding Russell’s, well, development. And it’s surely not what coach Tom Cable had in mind when he said this in March: “If he can accept the responsibility of being an NFL quarterback,
I think that’s working more, working harder, working longer than
everybody else, accepting the responsibility that his teammates look to
him as the face of the organization, that he has to go above and beyond
almost on a daily basis, I think that comes with that position, whether
that’s right or wrong, that’s what it is. . . . If he can accept that
and become that, he’ll be fine. . . . I think thus far in the offseason he’s been around more than
ever. He was never around like this on his own, just watching tape,
studying, so that’s a step in the right direction. I think he has to
embrace that, though, for him to be what he should be.”
Clearly, Russell hasn’t embraced the realities of his job. And so the question will be whether the Raiders are going to stay the course with Russell, or whether they’re going to fix this mess before it gets even worse.