Perhaps you caught on Tommy Smith's show on the "The Buzz" Friday morning that David White of the San Francisco Chronicle is in town getting the inside scoop on Oakland Raiders top draft pick Darren McFadden for a story in coming weeks.

White and Frank Shaw, one of McFadden's local attorneys, stopped by our office to visit. They had lunch Thursday at the original Sim's Bar-B-Q on Arch Street with Minnie Muhammad, McFadden's mother. White has hit the usual spots, visiting with Pulaski Oak Grove's former coach, John Mayes, who coached McFadden.

White says the Raiders are thrilled with the NFL Draft's fourth pick, who has yet to sign with the team but has participated in rookie and mini camps. "These days, it's become JaMarcus Who?" White said, referring to last year's Raiders top pick, the No. 1 pick in the Draft, former LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell. Feelings about the quarterback have soured since he held out into well into the season and then only got into four games, having a disastrous outing against Jacksonville in particular with a handful of blunders. It's going to take some time developing Russell into a competent NFL quarterback who doesn't just rely on his big arm to hurl a ball downfield to a speedy receiver running free, which was pretty much Russell's out play at LSU.

Now, at least for the first time since Bo Jackson was the Raiders' meal ticket back, the onetime AFC powerhouse franchise has a home-run threat. We were thinking even further back than Bo or Napoleon McCallum to Marcus Allen as the most comparable back to what McFadden could bring to the table: that ability to hit the hole time after time and then, all of a sudden, take one to the house 70 yards or so. Who can ever forget (as if the NFL Network or EPSN Classic around Super Bowl time would allow it) Allen's 78-yard burst through the middle to break the Redskins' back in Super Bowl XVII (the 1983 season). McFadden brings that type of jet that forces defenses to respect the run.

As soon as McFadden at his 212 pounds ran his 4.3 in the 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, Raiders owner Al Davis knew right then who he wanted as his first draft choice. It didn't hurt that the three teams above the Raiders in the draft had other needs, and the Raiders for that matter had more glariing needs, the Chronicle's White told us. Defensive tackle, for one. But who is going to sell tickets, or impact the win-loss record quicker: Glenn Dorsey (who still has to recuperate his leg injury from last season) or McFadden? Davis knew that answer immediately. It was a decision of "who you want vs. who you need," White said, and the Raiders went with what they wanted first.

White said second-year Raiders coach Lane Kiffin has already talked about some areas McFadden needs to improve, or maybe avoid in this case: mainly, that propensity for McFadden to take on his safety persona from high school and try to knock the fool out of defensive backs and linebackers bold enough to stand in and attempt to tackle him one on one. This is the NFL, young man, and those aren't undersized fellows on the defensive side of the ball now. Yes, there are concerns about McFadden's lower body being strong enough for the pounding.

McFadden won't have to come in forced to start immediately. The Raiders will hand the ball for starters to returning 1,000 yard rusher Justin Fargus, who is their human bowling ball. McFadden, meanwhile, can be used a little like Kiffin used Reggie Bush when he was co-offensive coordinator at Southern Cal, spotting him in the slot receiver position, then moving him in at tailback in situations, breaking him in slowly. After all, Adrian Peterson did quite well in his rookie season with the Vikings, too, without having to take a pounding starting on day one.

The Raiders reconvene in Napa for training back the last week in July.