Oh how NFL history might look different—Lane Kiffin, coach of the Oakland Raiders in 2007, had his eyes on wideout Calvin Johnson.
Team owner Al Davis had different plans.
As fans might recall, the Raiders drafted JaMarcus Russell with the No. 1 pick in the 2007 NFL draft. Calvin Johnson would up going second to the Detroit Lions.
Kiffin recently vented on the situation in an interview with Pete Thamel of Sports Illustrated:
He spends little time reflecting on the Raiders, other than pointing out he begged Al Davis to use the No. 1 pick on Calvin Johnson instead of JaMarcus Russell. Kiffin says Jeff Garcia had agreed to come to Oakland in free agency, and Davis based his Russell pick off evaluating the television copy of LSU’s Sugar Bowl blowout of Notre Dame. He shrugs: “The Raiders wasn’t that hard. Al Davis fires everybody.”
A Garcia-Johnson combo might have helped the Raiders in 2007 and Kiffin might have kept his job a lot longer. Instead, Russell fizzled out of the NFL in a hurry as one of the biggest busts of all time and Johnson went on to have a stellar career with the Lions.
Chalk it up as another case of “what could have been” at the NFL level. If it’s any consolation, both teams still look like playoff hopefuls this year. Kiffin now spends his days with Alabama, probably waiting for the phone to ring again.
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