In his rookie season, Heyward-Bey didn’t exactly light up the field with his play, but he also didn’t have a very good quarterback throwing to him. "Plastic Man" couldn’t have caught many of the passes JaMarcus Russell threw in Heyward-Bey’s direction, they were so far off mark.
After suffering through JaMarcus Russell’s seemingly lack of effort in his three years with the Raiders, I was impressed with how hard I heard Heyward-Bay worked during the past offseason. Sounded like the kid really wanted to improve, and with a better quarterback I was very hopeful that might happen this year.
Then I hear reports Heyward-Bay sat out four practices in the middle of training camp because of fatigue. Not an injury, fatigue.
When reporters suggested to Raiders coach Tom Cable that Heyward-Bey may have overtrained during the offseason, he said, “Yeah. I think guys do that now, especially with the way the offseason is and as long as they are and all that. He’s OK. I’m just not going to put him a situation where it may get us a negative outcome.’’
How could a 23-year-old professional athlete overtrain? I mean really, was he out there practicing 16 hours every day during the offseason? I don’t think so. I think the Raiders are probably trying to hide some kind of injury to Heyward-Bay from the prying eyes of the press.
The Raiders have been trying to justify their pick of Heyward-Bay over Crabtree ever since the 2009 NFL draft, and they have been promoting Heyward-Bay all summer as a hard-working receiver who is doing everything he can to improve.
Maybe he is a little fatigue...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Oakland Raiders
