The Great Debate

Like great debates of the past--Drew Bledsoe or Rick Mirer, Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf, Eli Manning or Phillip Rivers, and Vince Young or Matt Leinart this new Brady Quinn or JaMarcus Russell debate is a risky one. As everyone knows the NFL Draft is not an exact science. How players turn out is almost random at best, depending mostly on the right or wrong situations (example: no one thought Ben Rothlisberger would do so well but he was picked by a great team in the Pittsburgh Steelers at the 11 spot because they were devastated by injuries the year before, right place right time).

So the Oakland Raiders have been on the clock pretty much since September. They face this new debate over whether to take Russell or Quinn or do what they should do and trade down.


I'll start with Brady Quinn, who's been the golden boy for the Golden Domers since he signed his letter of intent. He was an average college quarterback at best in the West Coast system of coach Ty Willingham. Then when Charlie Weis introduced his new Pro System, Quinn had a great season breaking many Notre Dame passing records in the process. However, his production worsened in 2006 compared with 2005. Also, when Quinn has played against very athletic defenses with many players heading to the NFL, he's struggled. Against USC, Michigan, and Ohio State he's a combined 2-6 (his wins were against Michigan in 2005 and 2004). In addition to that he's 0-3 in bowl games, with his only decent bowl game against Ohio State where he went 29/45 for 286 yards (most of those were garbage yards at the end of the game) and no touchdowns or picks. So against worthy foes Quinn has been pretty lackluster.


Then there is JaMarcus Russell. It seems like the only quarterbacks LSU has had recently are big strong guys that look like they ate too many crawdads. His production has improved each and every year he has played, but in big games against good, quality defenses he hasn't fared much better than Quinn going a combined 3-5 against teams like Auburn, Florida, and Georgia. He has, though, gone 1-1 in bowl games, including the Tigers bitch-slapping of Quinn's Notre Dame team this past January. And unlike Quinn, Russell has played well in both of his bowl games (against Iowa in 2004 and Notre Dame in 2006).

The Brady-Russell Question is one that will be asked over and over again by coaches and owners in war rooms, and there is no answer. Quinn could either be the next Joe Montana or the next Rick Mirer, and Russell could be the next Daunte Culpepper (Randy Moss Era) or the next Rohan Davey (exactly). But this one thing is for certain, Houston will find out who the best player is, and then they won't pick them.

lak attack