he Raiders have a new QB, at least for the moment. That QB is Daunte Culpepper, Randy Moss' ex-ball chucker. He had a little tryout for the team yesterday and it went so well, he was signed. Which is one way of looking at it. The other way of looking at it is that a deep connection was made between two desperate entities as Culpepper came in overweight and was said to be "spotty" with his passes. Culpepper is a pretty good fit as current Raiders QBs Josh McNown or Andrew Walter kinda suck. He's expected to keep the chair warm until first round draft pick JaMarcus Russell is ready to go.

And speaking of Russell, he's still holding out for more money and the negotiations aren't really going well. The problem seems to be that nobody with the Raiders is in charge of negotiating contracts. Words being thrown around to describe the whole thing include "bizarre" and "embarrassing." Mentioned as people involved include the Raiders Boy Blunder Wonder of a coach; finance administrator Marc Badain, the teams lawyer, Jeff Birren, and the new director of football development, Mark Jackson. And while Jackson didn't run a bed-and-breakfast recently, his major accomplishments recently include being the assistant athletic director at USC and working for a boxing organization. The final say, however, as always, is Al Davis who has yet to weigh, probably because he has yet to be defrosted from his cryogenic chamber. We would like to point out too that most teams who have the #1 pick in the draft start negotiating with their pick ahead of time. The Raiders, apparently, did not.

Ironically, the Raiders were rumored to be pursuing Culpepper in the off-season and wanted to trade with the Dolphins to get him, the plan being to sign Culpepper and then make WR draft stud Calvin Johnson their first pick. The plan didn't go through because the Chiefs putzed around with trading Trent Green to the Dolphins and because the Raiders were never sure they could get him, drafted Russell.

Go Raiders.