First impressions of Jason Campbell

Perhaps the story of the 2010 draft’s third day was the trade by the Oakland Raiders to acquire QB Jason Campbell from the Washington Redskins for a fourth round pick in 2012. This weekend at the Raiders mandatory mini-camp, the ex-Redskin had his first opportunity to participate in practices with his new teammates. While he was finishing up his weekend in Alameda on Sunday, I was busy searching the net and trying to dig up all the dirt I could find on the Redskins first round pick from 2005.

started by watching nearly all his highlights/lowlights from the 2009 season, provided via NFL.com’s Redskins video page. One of the things that I noticed during my video research process was that he got better as the season went along. This could be due to several factors. For one, the fact that the Redskins changed play callers about halfway through the season last year. Number two, they lost 3 or four starting offensive lineman last year, so the back-ups took some time to gel. Or, it could be due to the fact that the Redskins really never gave him a vote of confidence to start the year off on the right foot. There was constant talk of starting Todd Collins, drafting Mark Sanchez, and trading for Jay Cutler during the 2009 offseason.

Regardless of all the undermining done by the Washington staff, Campbell performed at a decent level in 2009, throwing for over 3,000 yards and 20 touchdowns. His passer rating in the red zone was through the roof at around 110.0 with 18 touchdowns and 0 interceptions. His completion percentage was a soaring 64.5 percent overall for the year, up from the 62.4 percent mark he hit in 2008. While he increased his career touchdown pass mark to 55 total touchdowns, but he also threw a disheartening 15 interceptions, which was also his career high for a season.

I have to admit, when the idea was first posed that the Raiders should trade for Campbell my initial thought that there had to be other options. I even wrote an article saying that the Raiders should look at other team’s back-ups before they looked at this former Washington starter. However, in just a few short weeks, Campbell has groI read an article today that was written by a colleague of mine on Silver and Black Pride; it was called “The Bacon Fat on Jason Campbell.” In it, the author describes how he made it a point to go to the Redskins blog of SB Nation, and get thoughts from actual Redskins fans on Campbell. I’m going to give a few examples of what the folks of Hogs Haven had to say about Campbell: