Blogging the National Football League, Blogging the NFL
After a complete game 38-7 drubbing of the Oakland Raiders today, it’s easy to say the Green Bay Packers are balanced. Brett Favre may be having an MVP-type season, but he’s getting a lot of help. Let me count the ways:

The running game that was absent earlier in this 2007 season is now clearly led by Ryan Grant who carried the ball 29 times today for 156 yards.
Special teams are now scoring. Will Blackmon became the first player since 1974 to return a punt and fumble recovery in the same game for a …read more

Blogging the National Football League, Blogging the NFL
It might be time for the Oakland Raiders to consider starting rookie (and franchise) quarterback JaMarcus Russell. Here’s my main concern. The Raiders stink at fundamentals and it wouldn’t matter who the QB was when you’re committing the most holding and false start penalties in the NFL.
Daunte Culpepper and Josh McCown have tried their best while the team has struggled to a 2-6 start. But they’ve spent a lot of time on the ground. The Raiders are giving up the seventh most sacks in the league so far. Does the team really …read more

Blogging the National Football League, Blogging the NFL
As you can see, Oakland Raiders rookie QB JaMarcus Russell was all smiles at his press conference today. I can understand why. The official numbers of his richest-ever rookie contract: six-years, $61 million with $29 million guaranteed. He practiced today, but I predicted he might not even see the field during the regular season this year. We know JaMarcus won’t play for at least two weeks because he won’t officially be in the roster until then. Daunte Culpepper will start this weekend against the Denver Broncos. But if things go south for Daunte …read more

Blogging the National Football League, Blogging the NFL
After drafting JaMarcus Russell with the first overall pick in this year’s NFL Draft, the Oakland Raiders assumed their quarterbacking questions had been answered. They had found the face of their franchise. Three games into the preseason, they still don’t know who their starting QB will be.
With JaMarcus still at an impasse in contract talks, Daunte Culpepper, Josh McCown and Andrew Walter (in no particular order) have been given the chance to win the starting spot. Raiders head coach Lane Kiffin said:
“This competition, as I said a long time ago, it’s going to …read more

Oakland WR Jerry Porter is going to keep wearing uniform number 84. After finding out it was going to cost him $210,000 (in order to reimburse the Raiders and Reebok for the cost of the unsold jerseys) to change his number to 81, Jerry decided it was just too costly:
“Man, there’s a couple of nice cars I’d like to get for that money. I could buy a nice vacation home, or at least go half on one with someone else.”
My buddy Steve Alic, who works with the NFL, said Porter could wait until next year when the supply of unsold …read more