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Fantasy Football Spotlight: JaMarcus Russell
Posted by tomvanwyheJaMarcus Russell’s first season as an NFL starter was, well, shaky at best. His competence as a pro passerwas short of commendable, but it wasn’t so poor as to suggest he has no potential. Over the course of the season his numbers fluctuated, and he finished like a typical rookie: a bit over 2,400 yards passing, 13 touchdowns, 8 interceptions, and a 77.1 passer rating.
Bad numbers? Strictly in terms of fantasy football, yes. Considering the performance of some of his peers - Joe Flacco and Matt Ryan jump to mind - Russell’s pedestrian totals might suggest he’s behind the curve, especially considering those two examples literally were rookies. At the same time, one must realize Russell wasn’t playing for the same quality teams. Oakland isn’t built like a champion; the entire franchise is designed for subpar play.
Long story short, Russell had a season that didn’t wow fans but also left room for development.
The question now is whether he’s been making those strides. Early offseason impressions aren’t promising, as Evan Silva reports at Rotoworld:
I’ve been working at Rotoworld for over three years now and never before seen such consistently poor spring reports as JaMarcus Russell has gotten through late May.
He sites a couple eyewitness reports from local beat writers who tell of Russell landing balls at his receivers feet when his passes aren’t sailing over their heads. Even when he was just playing catch with his receivers (in other words, against no defense) he couldn’t hit all his targets.
It’s early of course, and Russell has a couple months before preseason to iron out the kinks. He has time to work with the team’s new personnel and continue learning the offensive scheme. Having said that, the clock is ticking. So how long can we wait? Silva went as far to ask, “At what point can we acknowledge that Russell is a bust?” It’s an interesting thing to say since, as I wrote a bit ago, he had a pretty average rookie season - but it wasn’t horrendous - and, c’mon, this will be his second full season in the league.
While we do wait to see what Russell is capable of doing, is there anything we take from last season? Certainly Russell won’t regress, right?
A quick fact worth pointing out now to illustrate the range of games Russell had: his passer rating ranged from 11.0 to 149.1 in games. Matter of fact, he posted a rating of at least 80 in three consecutive games just once during the season; on two other occasions he had back-to-back games with a rating that high. If the final three games of the 2008 are any indication of what is to come we can all look forward to 2009 - Russell passed for 626 yards, 6 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions in those games. He also threw at least one touchdown in 9 of his 15 starts; could be better, but that’s a start.
It’s also important to remember that Oakland doesn’t throw the ball a lot. This is a run-first team built around the running backs. The key to success relies on two things, then: the success of the guys taking handoffs and Russell’s ability to convert on third down.
And that’s where we find our first problem with Oakland’s offense last season. The Raiders finished 32nd in the NFL in third down conversion success rate, converting just 28 percent of the time. As you can guess that leads to a lot of punts and very few touchdowns. (F.Y.I..: the Raiders were 28th in the NFL in touchdowns scored.)
That’s the area Russell and the offense need to improve most this season. Russell’s inconsistency and 53.8 percent completion rate kept the Raiders’ offense from scoring more often last season. He didn’t have enough opportunities to throw touchdowns because Oakland’s drives were stalling.
If Russell can improve his completion percentage - raising it to at least 60, a respectable number - and improve his decision-making on third downs, the Raiders will be all the better for it. He might then finish with 16-18 touchdowns and close to 3,000 passing yards. If, on the other hand, he has a season similar to last year, it should be noted: patience is draining quickly and Jeff Garcia is hungry.
Tags: Fantasy Football, JaMarcus Russell, Oakland Raiders, Spotlight, Statistics
