Zach Miller: Oakland Raiders JaMarcus Russell to 'bounce back'

September 21, 1:26 PMOakland Raiders ExaminerPatrick Patterson

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Russell was off for most of the KC game. He held the ball for too long on this sack.
(AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

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After the Raiders unimpressive win in Arrohead, they returned to Alameda to prepare for Sunday's game against the Denver Broncos. Despite being shut out of the stat sheet, tight end Zach Miller gives quarterback JaMarcus Russell his complete confidence.

Miller said he was rendered a non-factor because Kansas City geared their coverage towards him. "Our running game never really got going so our play action wasn't there as much as it should have been so we didn't even get into a lot a
lot of play action calls because we weren't running the ball well enough. Our drop-back game, JaMarcus just wasn't on like he usually is. They were paying extra attention to me, a little bit of bracket coverage, making sure a guy was trying to jam me or wall me, that kind of thing. They made sure that I wasn't too involved."

Zach Miller was confident that the passing game would improve despite the rough performances Russell has strung together so far this season. "JaMarcus, I'm not too worried because he's going to bounce back and our passing game is going to get better as he gets more trust in the wideouts and we fix some things as a passing offense. He's going to be fine and our offense is going to be fine."

He wouldn't be surprised to see Russell have a much better game next week, "I think everyone can have a bad day. I think he's going to bounce back just fine next week."

Even though Russell is normally laid back in most situations, his teammates could see the frustration as the game wore on. Miller said of his quarterback, "He's pretty cool and calm but you could tell he was getting frustrated a little bit and wasn't feeling on that day. You could see a little bit of that in him."

Miller also believes that Russell's late game turnaround could be the confidence builder that the Raiders' young signal caller needs, "That should give him great confidence because that's two weeks in a row he had a great 2-minute that put points on the board. He just needs to focus on what he did in that drive and just carry that through for the rest of the game."

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