The 2007 Oakland Raiders Season Thread

[Blaze_1UP]

Raiders target December 2nd as Russell's debut date, bout time can't wait to see what this guy can do.


By Chris Mortensen
ESPN.com
The JaMarcus Russell era in Oakland likely will begin Dec. 2, sources told ESPN.

The Raiders have circled Dec. 2 vs. the Broncos as the likely starting debut for the 2007 No. 1 overall pick, team sources told ESPN.
Russell's "light came on" a couple of weeks ago, a source told ESPN.
Russell had a great week of practice, then weighed in at 259 on Friday after hovering in the 270s most of the season.
Unless Daunte Culpepper excels the next two weeks in starts against the Vikings and Chiefs, Russell likely will get all five starts in December.
Russell held out all of training camp in a contract dispute before agreeing to a six-year contract that carries a maximum value of $68 million, a league rookie record. His first practice was Sept. 12.

Thank God. It's getting really sad watching the Raiders offense lose the game week after week. I doubt Russell will improve the offense much but it will be nice to catch a glimpse of the future.

[Blaze_1UP]

Heard Russell didn't wanna play cause it was too cold. Sounds like this guy wants to be catered to and groomed, not good Raider fans.

[Transplanted Caper]

Originally Posted by Blaze_1UP

Heard Russell didn't wanna play cause it was too cold. Sounds like this guy wants to be catered to and groomed, not good Raider fans.

That would be pretty pathetic,

[Elwood]

Russel's from LSU, he's not man enough to wear a Raiders uniform if he thinks it is too cold to play football. I would put him on the next bus to his mama's house.

[Blaze_1UP]

Kiffin has not said how much Russell will play Sunday, but has designed a limited package of specific plays for the former LSU star. The expectation is that Russell will enter the game in the second quarter and probably play two series, from ESPN.com.

I don't understand why he's being used as a part time QB, let him play.

[Blaze_1UP]

He's not ready yet, completed 7 for 23, 83 yards, 1 TD, 3 INTs, 3.6 AVG.

[Blaze_1UP]

He'll get his 1st start for the last game of the season.

[MS72]

Russell's actually from Alabama, but he did go to LSU, so yeah.

[1 GREY FOX]

Kind of cold and dusty in here lol

Is anyone else wacked up about the up comming season? dam can't wait to see JR rip a few 60 yarders. Hopefully against the broncos lmaoo

[lilmeazi]

i beleive the raiders are the best in the NFL im a die hard raider raider fan..

[lilmeazi]

This is what i like to hear from the head coach ........


Raiders Head Coach Lane Kiffin: I’m very pleased with the effort. The three phases of the game I think you have to do extremely well on the road to be able to win and we did. We played really good special teams with great effort, played very physical defense stopping the run, and on offense we ran the ball extremely well. So, I think when you do those three things you’re going to win on the road. We did it yesterday and we have a big challenge this week to do the same thing.
Q: Can you talk about Darren’s (McFadden) game?
Coach Kiffin: I thought Rath (running backs coach Tom Rathman) did a great job. For two rookies [Darren McFadden and Michael Bush], [Michael Bush] hasn’t played, to be able to play on the road, a team that’s played well on defense against the run for a long time, for those guys to go in there and rebound after fumbles and play the way they did, I’m very pleased with that.
Q: Having watched the film, how did Mario (Henderson) do?
Coach Kiffin: He did well. If you go on the road and don’t hear the guy’s name a lot, he’s doing good, and that’s what he did. Obviously, there’s a number of things to get better and he was better on the back side of runs than he was on the front side, but it was good to see. It’s a good story for our guys, we always talk about how adversity is going to happen and the next guy has to step up whether he’s played for 10 years or he’s never played a snap ever before. Mario was a great example of going in there, plugging in, not worrying about anything. We took care of him with a lot of protections and really only took one shot downfield the whole game.
Q: Is there an advantage to closing out the game with a bigger guy like you did with Michael Bush?
Coach Kiffin: A lot of times there is because there’s so many people in the box because they know you’re going to run the ball at the end of the game. The safeties are up there so there’s going to be contact. You’re not going to get everybody blocked up so there’s going to be a guy at four or five yards. So, a bigger guy making the physical contact, he’s falling forward and getting you positive yards in those four minute situations to keep those sticks moving.
Q: On QB JaMarcus Russell’s performance…
Coach Kiffin: We’re very pleased with him making the first start on the road and to win. It’s a big deal. That doesn’t happen a lot, especially in a noisy stadium like that was. All that went into the game plan. I thought they did a really good job. You saw the QB throw the ball away a lot too at times, which was very big of him. He could have gotten frustrated because there were eight runs in a row, then there were nine runs in a row, then 11 runs in a row at different times during the game. That’s hard on a QB not to get frustrated at times and try to force the ball. He did a really good job of throwing the ball away when there was nothing there.
Q: On bouncing back after Week 1…
Coach Kiffin: I said that one of the best things to happen in a blowout is different from losing the game by a field goal. You say we could have had them. There were some glaring things in that opener that show the reasons we got beat like we did. We had to come back and go to work on it. I think our players and staff did a great job. The game plans of all three phases were very successful in what we put in this week and the players played better.

[sdmartin]

going to the next game

[TonySopran0]

go raiders

[badboy2]

Raider Nation!!