Looking back at the draft, hard to believe that 6 NFL teams passed on this guy..... 1 Oakland Raiders JaMarcus Russell Quarterback LSU 2 Detroit Lions Dayhandler, NickCalvin Johnson Wide Receiver Georgia Tech 3 Cleveland Browns Joe Thomas† Offensive Tackle Wisconsin 4 Tampa Bay Buccaneers Adams, GainesGaines Adams Defensive End Clemson 5 Arizona Cardinals Brown, LeviLevi Brown Offensive Tackle Penn State 6 Washington Redskins Landry, LaRonLaRon Landry Safety LSU 7 Minnesota Vikings Peterson, AdrianAdrian Peterson† Running back Oklahoma
Most of those picks weren't bad choices at the time. QB is above and beyond the most important position in football. Keeping that in mind, Russell has one of the strongest arms in NFL history. Knowing all that going into the draft and given that Oakland's QB at the time was named Andrew Walter -- can you really blame Oakland for selecting Russell? His potential speaks for itself. As for the others: Megatron is a complete freak and Joe Thomas is already a Pro Bowl lineman. Those two picks are certainly justifiable both right now and three years ago. Would Oakland, Detroit or Cleveland all trade their guys for the best RB in football right now? Yeah, probably. Just keep in mind that AP was considered injury-prone and just a system RB by some that couldn't catch passes out of the backfield. It's not like AP came out of college with some iron-clad guarantee that he was automatically going to become one of the best players in the league.
Well put. He also went from Super freshman phenom to really good Sophomore to a Junior who missed his final 7 regular season games. To say that 6 teams passing on him was a mistake is a mistake.
Hard to believe I sat right next to this guy every day in class and actually did a couple group reports with him. It seemed like such a natural thing back then- no big deal. Now, it's something I'll probably be telling my grandkids.
