Daunte Culpepper to solve Oakland Raiders' problems?

As of press time, Daunte Culpepper looks good. Very very good.

Coming to the brand new 2007-08 NFL football season, it seems the Oakland Raiders may have finally found the solution to their problems at the quarterback position.

With overall No.1 draft pick JaMarcus Russell STILL refusing to sign with the team, it looks like Daunte Culpepper can still play good enough to have Raider Nation forget about Russell's Elway-like arm and win a couple of games for a change. Well, it's still early but that's what it looks like the past few days anyway.

Daunte Culpepper, since arriving in Oakland, has shown signs of brilliance back when he was the explosive Minnesota Vikings quarterback who once led the league with 39 touchdowns, while piloting the Raiders offense. And with JaMarcus Russell holding out, Culpepper can very well be the answer, hell, the Raiders doesn't have much of a choice anyway.

JaMarcus Russell costs more than $30 million in guarantees. Yep, such is the price for quarterbacks taken in the first round. And if the Cleveland Browns had a rather difficult time signing Notre Dame Fighting Irish quarterback Brady Quinn, you can just imagine what the Oakland Raiders have been dealing with since they drafted this guy.

But figure this, if Daunte Culpepper did turn out to be one heckuva' steal from the free agency market, was drafting JaMarcus Russel as the overall No.1 pick the right thing to do for the Oakland Raiders?

If the Raiders just listened to Russell and bypass him, they could've drafted wideout extraordinaire Calvin Johnson, traded Randy Moss to the New England Patriots (as they did already...) for a fourth round pick and then traded their sixth round pick to Miami for... yes... Culpepper.

Instead, here they are, a salary cap about to explode with JaMarcus Russell's contract, no real wideouts to throw the football to other than Jerry Porter and a Daunte Culpepper scrambling to learn the Raiders offense with merely a couple of weeks away into the brand new 2007-08 NFL football season.

STILL, it will be up to Culpepper to pull the Raiders out of this hole.

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Cleveland Browns 125/1

New England Patriots 10/1

Chicago Bears 8/1

Indianapolis Colts 7/1

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Daunte Culpepper Oakland Raiders