Bless the modern day indentured servitude that is the NFL draft. The Raiders paid the price for the debacle that was JaMarcus Russel but every team reaped the benefit of their sacrifice
Opposite sides of the same coin is the way I've always understood it. The complete waste of Russell's contract got the owners pressing for it and the guaranteed money of Bradford's as a % of cap allocation got the players onboard. They went hand in hand during the 2010-11 CBA negotiations that saw the implementation of the rookie wage scale. The owners opted out of continuing the the CBA while Russell was still flaming out, he wasn't released until May of 2010. The opt out precipitated the negotiations that were ongoing when Bradford signed his contract, he had yet to play in the NFL when the opt out happened. HoF'er or bust, no one yet knew his career trajectory. In other words, Bradford's just happened to be the name on that year's 1st round pick. It was the % of cap allocation that an unproven rookie was taking up that rankled the rank & file but it was the potential for that contract to result in a Russell type crash and burn while the wound was still fresh that was the driving impetus for the owners.
As it played out Bradford is largely deemed a bust, albeit arguably an injury driven one. At the time though, JaMarcus Russell was the poster child for everything wrong with the way highly drafted rookies were getting paid.
