Coming to an NFL souvenir shop near you: a black knit ski hat that commemorates the end of both an unfortunate era in Oakland and an albatross for the league's owners. Stitched into the fabric will be the words: "The JaMarcus Russell Rookie Salary Cap."

The case for limiting rookie salaries has been made repeatedly over the last decade, as the very item intended to lift up a struggling franchise - a high draft pick - often pinned clubs down for years if they lost a bet on a 21-year-old. Russell's horrendous three years with the Raiders and the immense rancor that accompanied the quarterback's release on Thursday should end the debate permanently.

The Players Association, of course, has no reason to shield the teams or owners from their own bad choices. But the union should yield on the rookie cap, insist that most of the savings shift into the pockets of veterans, and wash its hands of the messes that inevitably accompany lavish contracts signed by 21-year-olds.

Even without outrageous salaries, top draft picks will always be under enormous pressure. But guarantees of $30 million or more amplify the potential for anger and frustration over a high-profile bust to a disturbing level. Over the last two years, Russell could not have been vilified more if he had invented the subprime mortgage.

His failures and chubbiness launched a thousand nicknames - JaWalrus, JaBustus, JaRyanleaf. Unless he succeeds with another team, part of his legacy will undoubtedly be providing the same kind of shorthand for sports underachievement that the Watergate Hotel gave to political scandals.

And why not? With $31.5 million in guaranteed money, he was an easy and justifiable target. More to the point, the Raiders' financial investment was bound to obscure Al Davis' vision, persuading him to hold on to Russell and hold on and hold on, because surely the big-armed kid (and his big-cash contract) would pay off someday.

So the fans and the media howled, and they mocked. People old enough to be Russell's parents - even grandparents - felt compelled to insult him, lest the message not get through to the Raiders' owner.

A rookie salary cap wouldn't eliminate the viciousness, but it would remove some dysfunction from the draft process. For a while now, Draft Day has been fueled by an unhealthy obsession with quarterbacks.

After the introduction of the salary cap in 1994, teams began to feel more pressure to use a top pick on a quarterback, so they wouldn't be spending big bucks on both a prospect and their team leader. It seemed wiser to roll the two expenditures into one.

Plus, the increased hype surrounding the draft pressured faltering teams into making splashy statements that day. If they lacked a quarterback, they were going to take one, regardless of any doubts they might have had about his worthiness. Never mind that Brett Favre, Drew Brees and Kurt Warner all won Super Bowls for teams that didn't draft them. Or that the most successful quarterback of this era, Tom Brady, went in the sixth round.

Meanwhile, of the 10 quarterbacks taken at No. 1 over the last 13 years, three have already belly-flopped in a big way. A fourth dazzled on the field, then did time in federal prison.

Only two Super Bowls have come out of the crop, one from each Manning brother. Contrast those results to the previous 30 years. From 1968 through 1997, only eight of the No. 1 picks were quarterbacks. Those eight picks produced just one genuine bust (Jeff George in 1990) and 1o Super Bowl wins (by John Elway, Jim Plunkett, Terry Bradshaw and Troy Aikman).

Russell never seemed to understand what his job required. He hadn't a clue. Even when the most elementary principles of damage control might have improved his standing with his teammates and the fans, he didn't deliver. The Raiders didn't school him properly. Nor apparently did the agents who took a cut of his salary.

For a while, Russell shared the Bay Area's vilification honors with Barry Zito, now rebounding from the pressures of signing a $126 million contract with the Giants. If he'd had as much responsibility as a quarterback, expected to run the show every game, unable to leave after three miserable innings and know he'd get another shot in five days, Zito couldn't have put his game together again.

As long as Russell remained the Raiders' hope for the future, he would be an obstacle to anyone else who might lead the Raiders. He deserved a lot of the scorn directed at him. But he never behaved like an utter jerk, as Ryan Leaf did in San Diego. He didn't snarl at teammates or coaches, as George, another big-armed dud who wore the silver and black, did on several of his stops in the NFL.

He simply had way too much handed to him at age 21, and as a result, he reaped excessive humiliation at age 24. The NFL and the players union couldn't prevent the whole disaster, but they can mitigate the potential for more of the same.

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