JaMarcus Russell wrote every NFL team asking for comeback chance

JaMarcus Russell, considered by many to be the biggest bust in NFL Draft history, said he would play for free to get back in the league.

For the better part of a decade, players selected early in the NFL Draft are met with either the comment “don’t be like JaMarcus Russell” or a scouting report that is meant to criticize them by comparing the player to the former first overall draft pick.

Indeed, JaMarcus Russell might go down as the biggest bust in NFL history when it’s all said and done. After being selected by the Oakland Raiders with the top pick in the 2007 Draft, Russell played just three seasons and went 7-18 as a starter before being cut following the 2009 year.

Now, Russell wants to make a comeback into the NFL and is willing to do whatever it takes (including playing for free) to get back into the league. Sports Illustrated revealed in a video documenting Russell that the former signal caller recently wrote a letter to every franchise that read in part:

"“As a former NFL player, I understand the daily grind that football operations can be,” Russell wrote. “I am prepared to be physically examined and to have my football IQ evaluated.”“I know that my name does not carry much weight in the NFL right now but I am more than the image that others have bestowed on me. I’ve been labeled as a bust, I have been labeled as lazy and I have been the target of many insults by the media. The blame for any negative press that I’ve received rests squarely on my shoulders.”"

While it’s commendable that JaMarcus Russell is trying to make a comeback and has seemed to turn things around (both on the field and off the field after a 2010 arrest for possession of codeine without a prescription), you can safely say that his career in the NFL is likely over and has been that way for years now.

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