NFL

Oakland Raiders Looking To Collect Nearly $10m From Released QB

The gold standard of NFL Draft busts has been, for so many years, Ryan Leaf – to the point that a clever editor went ahead and added airquotes to his Wikipedia page around NFL “career.” Thanks to three dismal seasons with the Oakland Raiders since he was drafted in 2007, JaMarcus Russell soared to #2 with a bullet. A few weeks after releasing the disappointing QB, the Raiders have now filed grievances and want $10 million back.

In three seasons, Russell was 7-18 in 25 starts, raised several concerns about both his fitness and work ethic, and lost his starting job halfway through the 2009 campaign to a tandem of Bruce Gradkowski and Charlie Frye. The one-time #1 draft pick certainly fell way off the mark, and it really wasn’t that much of a shock when Al Davis’s team let him go.

Given the performance and the subsequent release, Davis and the Raiders are looking to collect more. AP reports that they will looking to collect advances paid to Russell for the 2010, 2011 and 2012 seasons of approximately $9.55 million. All of this can’t be helping the QB who has still yet to sign with another team, but the only comment from his team has been a brief definition of “guaranteed money.”