Huh. I struggle to imagine a world where I would call the career of a guy who made $40 million and retired before he was 30 a "flop". I mean, I get where you're coming from with the dismal performances, disastrous failures on the field, utter lack of results, and brevity of his career. But still . . . $40 million? A flop?

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He gave zero effort once he signed his rookie contract.

I've never been convinced he gave up quite that quickly. It seemed to me at the time that the first part of that first season he was still giving the effort, but the complete shitshow that was the Raiders franchise at the time just crushed him (like it had so many other NFL star-caliber athletes before him). My impression was that as soon as he saw that, he took his $40 mill & checked out. Of course, I had largely given up on the NFL by then and may have been looking through purple & gold tinted glasses since I was a huge JaMarcus fan, so I could have been mistaken.

My take on JaMarcus has always been that he was a ridiculously gifted athlete with an almost unprecedented arm talent coupled with exceptional size and athleticism. And somebody told him early on that if he busted his butt, worked hard, and mastered the game, he could become a millionaire in the NFL. Which is precisely what he did. He worked his butt off and became one of the most highly sought after high school QB recruits, and then kept working to become the best QB in college football and the most highly sought after NFL prospect, got drafted #1 and signed a contract for $40 million. He won football. Then (either before or after becoming disillusioned with the NFL and/or the Raiders) he said, "f--- it", then he retired a rich, rich man.

Not the narrative of an NFL legend to be sure, but not a bad life story if you can live it.