JaMarcus Russell has a place in NFL history beside Ryan Leaf and Jeff George, the special kind of busts who didn’t only play quarterback poorly, but displayed a bad attitude that sent them out the door much quicker than their lack of on-field performance. Russell was guaranteed more than $30 million in his rookie deal — a figure he earned after holding out during training camp. He was plagued by fitness and attitude questions, as well as some of the worst on-field performance of any QB in the NFL. It’s no wonder he was out of the NFL within three seasons.
Six years after he was released by the Raiders, Russell is trying to make his way back to the NFL (for the second time), and according to a Sports Illustrated special scheduled to be released on Tuesday, he’s willing to humble himself in unprecedented fashion for another shot at the big time.
Nine years after being the No. 1 pick, JaMarcus Russell doesn’t ask for sympathy. Premieres 4/26 from @SI_Films.https://t.co/oJVjocBpHL
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) April 25, 2016
“Whatever it is, I could be the waterboy, and work my way into the scout team,” Russell says. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll go play for free.”
There’s a sort of irony in Russell’s desperation to get back to the NFL, and his specific willingness to play without pay (that’s not how that works anyway — if he got hired, he’d be paid). After all, it was his contract holdout that derailed his career from the start and deprived him of that crucial rookie training camp. Of course, he had plenty of chances after that, but his holdout got him off on the wrong foot — and contributed to the institution of the rookie contract scale a couple of years later.
We wish Russell the best in his comeback attempts, but he’ll be 31 when the season starts without having played organized football in a half-decade. If an NFL team wants to take a long shot on a scout team QB, they’ll almost certainly do so with someone younger and less fraught with history than JaMarcus.