FanHouse Verron Haynes

You can say this about Oakland Raiders Head Coach Lane Kiffin: he knows what the strength of his offense is. According to Raiders beat writer Jerry McDonald at the Contra Costa Times, Kiffin is having dreams of a monster, clock-killing, punishing rushing attack led by Justin Fargas, Darren McFadden and Michael Bush that will pound the ball at defenses nearly 600 times during the 2008 season.

My amateur math skills tell me that 600 rushing attempts over a 16-game season comes out to, roughly, 37 carries per game. That's a lot of running. As a team, they ran the ball 508 times in '07, including seven games where they had at least 30 attempts.

Without getting into the question of, what does it say about your offense when the strength consists of two guys to never carry the ball in an NFL game, this seems like a dream in every sense of the word. I'm not saying the Raiders aren't going to pound the ball and be a run-first team, but 600 carries, or close to it, is nearly impossible to do.

It seems like every year, at least one longtime Steeler backup gets a nice Christmas present. For years it was wide receiver Lee Mays who would get signed off the street late in the season just because he knew the Steeler playbook. At $20,000 or so a game, it made for a much nice Christmas around the Mays house every year.

In some years it was tight end Matt Cushing, who yo-yo'ed on and off of the Steelers roster a couple of times a year.

And now it's Verron Haynes turn. The former Steeler third-down back has been out of the NFL ever since the Steelers cut him during the preseason. No other team thought it was worthwhile to sign the former Georgia star, but his knowledge of the playbook and Bruce Arians and Kevin Colbert's knowledge of him is enough to get him another NFL paycheck, even if it's likely to be just for a couple of weeks. Haynes join the roster when the Steelers officially ended Willie Parker's season by placing him on injured reserve.

Hopefully Haynes has kept himself in shape, but this doesn't even necessarily mean he'll dress out. No. 3 tailback Gary Russell has been inactive most weeks, and since he's been around all year and has some upside, it would seem to make sense to make him the new backup tailback while Haynes becomes the third tailback to turn to in case of an absolute emergency.