Dan Pompei

Al Davis has all the gaudy white jumpsuits one closet can hold. His locker room is stocked full of malcontents, prima donnas and underachievers, just the way he likes it. He leads the league in coaches who are willing to take his, ahem, direction. He has more slogans for his team than four branches of the military have combined.

Davis has it all, it seems.

Except a winning team. And, on a related front, a quarterback.

Because the Raiders have the first pick in the draft, Davis will have a chance to rectify that.

If he thinks the way the rest of the NFL does (yeah, I know, dumb statement), Davis' research will lead him to choose between JaMarcus Russell of LSU and Brady Quinn of Notre Dame.

Russell is the kind of quarterback who will make Davis' eyes as big and bright as Super Bowl rings. Russell is about the size of a porta-potty. One scout says Russell is the thickest-hipped quarterback he has ever seen and that he could be a guard if he wanted to be. He is one of the strongest quarterbacks who has ever come into the league and can shrug off pass rushers like a cow shrugs off flies.

With that big body comes a big arm. A really big arm. An NFC scouting director says the only quarterback in the NFL who can throw with the velocity Russell generates is Michael Vick. And it isn't as if all he can do is throw hard. Russell can put touch on the ball, drop a pass into a spot or throw the fade. He will throw the ball where only the receiver can catch it.

Russell should become a much better passer than Vick has been up to this point. Russell also has been compared to Byron Leftwich and Daunte Culpepper. Russell is considerably more athletic than the former but not as athletic as the latter. Still, he has the potential to be a better, more consistent passer than Culpepper.

Russell has been somewhat inconsistent with his decision making, but he improved last season. He appears to be figuring out it's OK to check down and live for another play. Russell stepped up his play as the stakes got higher for LSU, and he won some big games in hostile territory.

Of course, he also outplayed Quinn in the Sugar Bowl, and Quinn's critics point out he didn't do enough to win the three biggest games on Notre Dame's schedule.

To a degree, Quinn is being stricken with Leinartitis. That is, when a player has been highly regarded for too long, everyone starts finding imaginary holes in him. It happened to Matt Leinart last season, and the player who looked like the first pick in the draft for so long ended up sliding to the 10th pick — for no good reason.

Maybe Quinn isn't everything you're looking for in a quarterback. He's probably not the type of player who will strap a team on his back and carry it. But he can be a fine NFL passer. In fact, his coach at Notre Dame, Charlie Weis, has been telling NFL scouts he believes Quinn will develop into the third-best quarterback in football, behind only Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. That sounds like a stretch, but the truth is there is no good reason not to pick Quinn high in the draft.

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Quinn makes some pretty throws at all distances. He goes in streaks with his accuracy, though. Like Russell, Quinn has an NFL body. And he's as tough as he is big.

What's more, Quinn is probably more ready to play than Russell. Quinn played in 13 more college games than Russell and was the face of one of the country's premier college programs.

So who should Davis pick?

Given the state of the Raiders, Davis needs a hero. Russell would look better in tights and a cape, as well as in black and silver.

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