Sounds Like Raiders Were After McNabb, May Draft Clausen

I think Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders think they need another quarterback and that’s why they were in pursuit of Philadelphia Eagles Pro Bowl quarterback Donovan McNabb.¬† It makes me think they may grab Jimmy Clausen if he’s still on the board when the draft at number 8 in the first round.

Davis and the Raiders can’t seem to get anything right nowadays.¬† They expressed interest in obtaining McNabb a few weeks ago, but let some reports of him threatening to retire if they consummated the trade for him, drive them away.

Recently Raiders head coach Tom Cable was quizzed about the McNabb trade and whether the Raiders had tried to acquire him.

“Some of that, there’s not a lot of truth to it,” Cable said, implying that there is some truth to it.¬† “And who was really involved in that, I don’t know that we were really the player everybody said that we were. . . .¬† We’ve got who we’ve got on contract right now, and whether or not that changes between now and the draft, or we go in and draft a guy or trade for someone after — whatever that is, we’ll see.¬† But I don’t know that the draft, the depth of it, concerned us about Donovan, because it really wasn’t our play to make.”

Notice that he didn’t totally deny there was some truth to the rumors that the Raiders were at one time the leading candidate to acquire McNabb.

It sounds to me that the Raiders were definitely in pursuit of McNabb but probably fell for the report that he would retire before playing for Oakland.

They would rather that former number one pick JaMarcus Russell not know that they’ve been after other quarterbacks and have given up on him for all intents and purposes.

The thing that really makes this sting is the fact that McNabb says he would have played for the Raiders if they had acquired him.

“I would have been at the workouts and working out with the team, throwing and trying to get the timing down with the corps of receivers and running backs they have, and communicated with the offensive line to get ready for minicamp” McNabb said.

I think missing on McNabb is going to have them thinking about grabbing Clausen at number 8.  Again, it would also mean they have given up on Russell.

Moves like these are the reasons that the Raiders remain in the AFC West basement.