ESPN's John Clayton cites the Raiders as one of the "five surprise teams to watch in 2008" (oddly, no mention of those upstart Arizona Cardinals; I guess we finally all agree that they'll never be any good). I'm skeptical, but the regular season is still some four months off, so what the hell.

Clayton writes that JaMarcus Russell is the wild card, but points to Al Davis' huge offseason investments in Kwame Harris, DeAngelo Hall, Tommy Kelly, Drew Carter and Javon Walker (not to mention first-round pick Darren McFadden) as reasons for optimism.

Russell showed up to OTAs well under the rumored three bills and looked sharp, particularly throwing on the move. The reviews were less than laudatory for Walker, however:

Drew Carter outperformed the more expensive Javon Walker, who Kiffin said needs to improve his conditioning. Todd Watkins is the sleeper, a big, active, former BYU receiver who could make a run if he continues his progress.

This is the same Drew Carter who ranked 66th in total value among all wideouts last season, according to Football Outsiders.

To be fair, it's May, the time of year football is played in shorts and t-shirts, and Walker is recovering from a knee injury that hampered him for parts of the last three seasons. Still, anytime you're referred to as "the other receiver" in a conversation including Drew Carter, well, it's not a good thing.

Luckily, if the passing game struggles early, the Raiders have 27 running backs to carry the load.

Credit to Javon Walker for not going with the lame generalizations the fans and media have grown so comfortable in making. When the Raiders used the first-overall pick of the 2007 draft to take quarterback JaMarcus Russell, he was immediately compared to Daunte Culpepper. Presumably because both are north of 250 pounds, and possess big arms, but also because, in case you missed it, they're black.

Me, I liked the Russell-Jared Lorenzen parallel, but that never caught on for some reason. Walker has his own thoughts:

As for playing with Russell, Walker compared it to his early years in Green Bay when the quarterback was Brett Favre.

"He has a good arm. I've been fortunate enough in my career to play with a quarterback who had a strong arm, and that's something I developed into, catching a fast ball," Walker said. "He's one of those guys that has that ball. The more and more we work together, the better that we're going to be."

And physically, they're virtually indistinguishable. I'm surprised no one picked up on that before now. Slight exaggeration, I'll grant you, especially since there were offseason "reports" that Russell looked more like Sam Adams than an NFL quarterback.

Fortunately, Russell showed up this week looking a svelte 269. He admits to needing to drop a few more lbs., and once he starts pimping Wrangler jeans the transformation will be complete.

If he hadn't broken his leg in the first game of the 2006 college football season, Michael Bush might have been a first-round draft pick in 2007. Instead the Raiders got him in the fourth round, and he spent that entire year rehabbing from the injury.

Now he's healthy (the photo was taken at the Raiders' minicamp on Friday, when Bush ran at full speed), but can he get on the field with Darren McFadden now the main man in Oakland? He tells the Sacramento Bee what he thought when McFadden was drafted:

"At first I was like, Why do we need another back?, because, at the time, we did have Dominic, and LaMont still on the roster, and (Justin) Fargas and me," Bush said. " ... It kind of bothered me, but it didn't because he can help us. ... I'm glad that he's on our side."

McFadden says he was watching the Louisville game when Bush broke his leg, and he seems to think highly of Bush. When you draft a running back with the fourth overall pick, you're planning to hand him the starting job, but I like the options the Raiders have with having McFadden and the 245-pound Bush as a 1-2 punch. If Bush is as good a player as people thought he was two years ago, the Raiders have two of the NFL's most talented young runners.

Oakland Raiders defensive coordinator Rob Ryan is one of the NFL's most recognizable assistant coaches because he's the only one with long hair. At least, he used to be.

Ryan recently got a haircut, and it had nothing to do with the NFL's proposed rules change banning long hair -- that one applies only to players. Instead, he did it for charity.

Asked about his decision to donate his hair to Locks of Love, which turns donated hair into wigs for people suffering from long-term medical hair loss, Ryan said, "Why not? Clean up my act."

I also can't help but think that part of his decision was an effort to make himself look more like the stereotypical head coach, which Ryan wants to be. Fair or not, appearance matters, and there are undoubtedly some NFL owners who would hold Ryan's hair against him when considering him for a head-coaching job. That won't be a problem anymore.

When the Detroit Lions drafted wide receiver Mike Williams with the 10th pick in the 2005 NFL draft, most people thought it was stupid because the Lions had used Top 10 picks on wide receivers in the last two drafts.

As it turned out, it was stupid because Williams wasn't any good. He caught 37 passes in two seasons in Detroit, had some crucial drops in key moments, got morbidly obese and horribly out of shape, and was shipped to Oakland last year.

Now Oakland has let him go, and he's in Tennessee, where he says he's in good shape and down 30 pounds to 242, or only about 10 heavier than he was at USC. New offensive coordinator Mike Heimerdinger says he's excited about what Williams can bring to the offense.

I just don't buy it, though. The last time Williams looked like a good football player was at the 2004 Rose Bowl. I think Williams' football talent has atrophied.

I didn't even know this was up for debate, but during his radio show yesterday, Dan Patrick asked recently retired Raiders defensive tackle Warren Sapp if Al Davis was still the puppet master in Oakland. Sapp confirmed what the rest of us just assumed to be true:

"Fully. When I went there a few months ago, no doubt about it. Sitting there, talking with him about my plans, right before the last game of the year, watching Randy Moss and Tom Brady go get a 16-0 record. He had a big-screen TV, and we were there watching it," Sapp said. "He's definitely in full control. Don't kid yourself because you see the man in a walker. There's nothing wrong with his brain."

Exactly. Just like Stephen Hawking and Charles Xavier, Davis' limitations are strictly physical. If you're looking for a partner in the three-legged race, well, you've come to the wrong place; if you want to clean up in Trivial Pursuit, jackpot. That said, I'm not sure either Hawking or Xavier would've drafted Darren McFadden or re-hired Art Shell.

More interesting, perhaps, is that Sapp, once critical of Randy Moss during his two-year stint with the Raiders, has a different perspective on his former teammate:

In news that shocked no one, the Raiders used the fourth-overall pick in the draft to select Darren McFadden, which led to the team releasing Dominic Rhodes. The move put Oakland under the salary cap, but it also meant one fewer running back on a depth chart that now includes McFadden, LaMont Jordan, Justin Fargas and Michael Bush.

Today, Rhodes, took his GM skillz to Sirius NFL Radio:

"I don't see the reason why the Raiders needed to draft a running back, you know what I'm saying? I mean, we have a stable full of running backs, that ran for 100 yards every one of them. And then we went and drafted a guy -- he's a great runner, don't get me wrong -- but, I don't understand the logic, everybody wanted to do this or that; it was never saying, "Okay, we're all going to do this together." I mean, there were just a whole bunch of fires everywhere, and ... then they seemed to blaze out of control.

I don't really think Lane Kiffin wanted to take a running back in the first round, let's just put it like that ... he has to deal with it now, but I don't think that's what he wanted to do.

Oakland Raiders 2008 Draft Picks:

Round 1 (4): Darren McFadden, RB, Arkansas
Round 4 (100): Tyvon Branch, CB, Connecticut
Round 4 (125): Arman Shields, WR, Richmond
Round 6 (169): Trevor Scott, DE, Buffalo
Round 7 (226): Chaz Schilens, WR, San Diego State

The Good: Well, the Raiders got arguably the most explosive player in the draft. They also landed a fourth-rounder for sending Fabian Washington to Baltimore, and promptly drafted the next Washington with Tyvon Branch. The team's second-round pick went to Atlanta for the rights to DeAngelo Hall, who, according to defensive coordinator Rob Ryan, makes up one half of the best cornerback tandem in the NFL. (Denver and Green Bay respectfully disagree.)

The Bad: JaMarcus Russell still doesn't have anyone to block for him, and the defensive line -- Warren Sapp-less and Tommy Kelly-ful -- didn't improve over the weekend. For as dynamic as McFadden should be, Glenn Dorsey might've made more of an impact, especially in the short-term.

The Grade: B-. It's hard to get too worked up about the holes the Raiders didn't fill because they now have McFadden to go along with Russell and Javon Walker. Let's just hope the patchwork offensive line can keep Andrew Walter on the bench.

Click here to read other Draft Grades.

Two days after drafting running back Darren McFadden, the Oakland Raiders have informed running back Dominic Rhodes that he's being released.

The move, first reported by ESPN's John Clayton, was a necessity for the Raiders, as the team was in danger of going over the NFL's salary cap. Rhodes had a $1.75 million salary for 2008, which is now off the Raiders' books.

Thus ends an ugly year for Rhodes as a Raider. He served a four-game suspension for violating the NFL's substance-abuse policy, and finished his time in Oakland with 302 yards on 75 carries. He'll likely catch on with some other team for a salary around the league minimum, but the days of anyone offering him a $1.75 million salary are long gone.

It's hardly surprising, I guess, that head coach Lane Kiffin was fibbing in the days and weeks leading up to this weekend's NFL Draft. Nobody was buying his claim that the Raiders didn't need a running back (even though, you know, they didn't) because owner Al Davis loves speed, and more importantly, Al Davis has final say in, well, everything.

With that in mind, it was hardly surprising when commissioner Roger Goodell announced the Raiders were taking Darren McFadden with the fourth-overall pick. Even less shocking: Kiffin's comments following the selection.

I remember mentioning that running back wasn't a need for us, and it wasn't. We're kind of piled there with a number of really good running backs and guys coming back, including Michael Bush, who we really don't know enough about yet. It was not a need but it became a situation ... speaking for myself, I knew months ago that this was the guy that we had to have and we had to figure out a way to get him. Hopefully, he was going to fall to us. We lost the coin toss and moved to four and that scared me a little bit there. Fortunately, he was still available and in the end we got everybody on the same page. We're all really excited.

When Kiffin says he knew months ago that McFadden was the guy, I'm pretty sure that means Al Davis told him back in January that the Raiders were taking McFadden, no matter what it took. And when he mentions being scared, Kiffin's specifically referring to being scared about losing his job if McFadden off the board when Oakland went on the clock.

Disaster averted, and for now, everybody's happy. Which isn't something you don't say very often when referring to the Raiders.