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Jamarcus Russell’s Situation Is Getting Downright Ugly

I honestly figured that this would be the week that the Jamarcus Russell holdout would come to an end when I wrote the post, Holding Out For A Hero? on Tuesday. At that point, Russell had been up to 40 days in his current holdout. Today is the 42nd day, and I was just forwarded some information that may make this whole situation even muddier. Jamarcus still does have the rest of today and tomorrow to make my internal prediction correct.

Anyway, Liz Mullen of SportsBusinessJournal.com (subscription required), notes that a couple of agents in the company that has Russell under contract have suddenly jumped ship for another agency. Russell was, and still is, represented by the firm of Lock, Metz & Malinovic (LLM), but the man who originally recruited him to the company has now departed and joined DeBartolo Sports & Entertainment, located in Tampa, Florida. Interestingly, he left on Tuesday, which is the same day that I covered the Jamarcus Russell story for the first time.

Mel Bratton (the man who originally recruited Russell) is now Vice President of Football Operations at DeBartolo Sports, while Emanuel Drakes (the other mentioned person who broke away from LLM) will be Vice President of Recruiting. It is definitely interesting that 2 employees of LLM quit at the same time, during the longest holdout in the history of the NFL, and join the same company with both gaining Vice President positions.

Can someone tell me if Jamarcus Russell has any opinion about all of this? At least his uncle thinks he will be signing soon…

-Darren Heitner

By Darren Heitner

Darren Heitner created Sports Agent Blog as a New Year's Resolution on December 31, 2005. Originally titled, "I Want To Be A Sports Agent," the website was founded with the intention of causing Heitner to learn more about the profession that he wanted to join, meet reputable individuals in the space and force himself to stay on top of the latest news and trends.

Heitner now runs Heitner Legal, P.L.L.C., which is a law firm with many practice areas, including sports law and contract law. Heitner has represented numerous athletes and sports agents as legal counsel. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Indiana University Bloomington from 2011-2014, where he created and taught a course titled, Sport Agency Management, which included subjects ranging from NCAA regulations to athlete agent certification and the rules governing the profession. Heitner serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he teaches a Sports Law class that includes case law surrounding athlete agents and the NCAA rules.

2 replies on “Jamarcus Russell’s Situation Is Getting Downright Ugly”

I would like to know if Bratton is leaving because the DeBartolo offer was too sweet to pass up or if he sees this mess that LMM has gotten into and wants to ride his good name of this debacle. Keep in mind that DeBartolo has put together a pretty nice team, with Ralph Cindrich heading up operations.

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