ALCOA Presents!

You Make The Call!

In box number one you have a substance of moderate value and limited application! In box number two you have 297 pounds of pure, lazy crap! Oakland Raiders, You Make The CALL!

This is essentially what it has come down to in Raiderland. The choice Lord Al seems to be weighing between keeping either coach Tom Cable or rumored NFL quarterback JaMarcus Russell. This is like Sophie's choice except that one of the kids is adopted, lazy and disliked by the vast majority of the people with any rooting interest.

Now I'm not here to serve out the Tom Cable kool-aid, he's average at best. However, for all of his limitations, the players do seem to play hard for him, even when the season was essentially over. Roll some tape of the Joe Bugel, Mike White, Bill Callahan, Art Shell II, Norv Turner, Lane Kiffen eras and see if you can say the same.

Now to JaMarcus. He is just plain awful. Ryan Leaf was a better player, just had a worse personality. Russell is arguably worse now than when he came in the league. Still fat, no pocket awareness, no touch, no timing, no leadership. When asked how he felt about Bruce Gradkowski getting a chance to start, I think his exact quote was "Pretty great!" I doubt Dan Marino would let Scott Mitchell take over so easily.

Gradkowski really was the nail in the JaMarcus coffin. Gradkowski has all the skills of a career backup yet the team was transformed when he played. the offense looked competent and confident. Even Charlie Frye rolled up big passing yards when he got his chance. When both went down with injuries, the team deflated visibly, turnovers ensued and patheticness resumed.

There can be no choice in the matter. Cut Jam-Jam. He will never be any good. Draft an OL with the eighth pick (Claussen and Bradford are scary thoughts), draft a Tony Pike in the second or third round and roll into next year with J.P. Losman and Gradkowski fighting it out for the job. If the team sucks again, fire Cable and try to land Jake Locker in the draft. Doesn't really matter what the plan is so long as JaM isn't a part of it.