Russell Time in Raiderland???

They're 2-5 and their formerly mobile quarterback can't get back from center. The offense has become very "Shell Era" like, scoring 9 and 10 points respectively, in their last 2 games. Has the time come to start playing the 32 Million Dollar (guaranteed) Man, the No. 1 overall pick, former LSU comeback king JaMarcus Russell? The argument goes that the Raiders aren't going anywhere good this year, the quarterbacks that have played so far haven't played that well (barring Duante's revenge game against the hapless Dolphins) and you can get JaMarcus' growing pains out of the way now so he's ready to win, and win a lot, next year. The argument against playing Russell starts with when he started his season; after the regular season started. His contract holdout caused Russell to not have one training camp practice under his belt and missing that experience in his rookie year puts him too far behind to be effective this year. Besides, even Tom Brady wouldn't do much behind an offensive line that couldn't protect him, and the Raiders' line has not done much to protect the quarterback these last few games. Putting JaMarcus into a situation where success will be so difficult to achieve may hurt his confidence, and can actually set back his development. Raiders coach Lane Kiffin (who is less then a year older then me!) is worried about that possibility, but seems more concerned with seeing JaMarcus do his thing consistently in paractice, before he'll let him do his thing during game action. The Catch 22 with that is that there aren't many opportunities in practice for the 3rd string quarterback to be on the field consistently, much less show consistency. The coaches biggest concern is getting guys on the field that "give us the best chance of winning," and at this point Russell is not that quarterback...yet...

Here's what I think: This team is not out of playoff contention at this moment. Before you laugh, look at the division. The leaders are the Chiefs and Chargers, both at 4-3 right now. 4-3 is also the record that would get the 3rd wildcard team into the playoffs (if they started today of course). 2 games back from 2 ways into the playoffs is far from impossible. In another two or three weeks however, if the team is 3 or 4 games away from a playoff spot with only 5 or 6 games to play, then it becomes, "what the hell," time so JaMarcus might as well get in there. Of course that's if he's ready yet. Hopefully, week 12 or 13 will afford him enough time to catch up for the lost training camp time so that he's comfortable leading the Silver and Black.

What'd'ya think??