Ryan Mallett has been all over 2011 NFL Mock Drafts. At the end of the college season he was widely considered a first-round selection. He has since slipped to a second and even a third-round selection. During all of this Mallett is keeping a busy workout schedule.
Bill Williamson of ESPN heard Ryan Mallett mention on a recent radio interview that he could not mention one of the teams he was scheduled to work out for.
"It made me the think of the secretive Raiders, who could use a strong-armed quarterback prospect." Williams wrote. "I’m not saying Mallett will visit the Raiders. Just connecting the dots."
That is some solid dot connecting. It is no secret that the Raiders like to keep secrets. Also everyone knows Al Davis loves him some big armed quarterbacks.
Mallett is certainly worth bringing in for a visit. He has all the tools, and he has the accuracy that the Raiders last highly drafted lacked.
However, he also has something else in common with said last highly drafted QB: rumors of drug use.
Once upon time, this certainly not something that Al Davis would worry about when bringing in players to the Raiders, but he has recently begun to change his stance. Here is what Jerry McDonald of the ContraCostaTimes.com reported Davis as saying about JaMarcus Russell:
“We had a big investment in this guy. Basically, he’s a good person but he’s got personal problems, and I decided that it was time that we were not going to fight it anymore. I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t going to ask the coaching staff to do it"
In other words, I wouldn't be shocked if the Raiders brought in Mallett for a workout, but I would be shocked if they drafted him.
I have no idea if the rumors circulating about Mallett are true or not, but I do know that his displayed indifference towards addressing them reminded me of Russell, and I'd be surprised if the Raiders didn't see the same thing.