Grip and sip! Jolly Rancher is rumored to be considering a sponsorship if JaMarcus signs.

MOBILE, Ala. – Recently released free-agent quarterback and epic NFL draft bust JaMarcus Russell is borrowing a fresh page from the LeBron James free-agency playbook.

Today he announced that he has narrowed the list of teams contending to be the next chapter in his infamous career to five and that he will reveal the winning team in a one-hour special airing live early tomorrow at 2:30 a.m. EDT on the cable channel Versus.

Versus offers specialized sports programming and commands a daily viewing audience nearly twice as large as the average attendance for NFL games at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, home of the Oakland Raiders, where Russell has spent his entire professional career to date.

Arranged on short notice, Russell’s special has been slotted between an infomercial about guided waterfowl hunts in North Dakota and “Table Tennis classics: rematch of the 1973 men’s doubles Table Tennis World Championship match held in Sarajevo between Sweden and Hungary.” (Spoiler alert: Sweden prevailed).

Russell said that during the hour-long show, which will be staged at the Monte L. and Louise R. Moorer YMCA in Mobile, Alabama, he will announce that he will sign with one of the following teams: the Alabama Vipers, the Bossier–Shreveport Battle Wings, the Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz, the London/England Monarchs or the Amsterdam Admirals.

The Vipers, Battle Wings and Yard Dawgz hail from the struggling semi-pro Arena League in the U.S., while the Monarchs and Admirals ply their trade in the NFL’s sidekick European league.

Sources close to Russell said the frontrunners are the Vipers, sited in his home state, and the Battle Wings, located near his collegiate stomping grounds.

A distant third, said the source, is the Admirals of Amsterdam. “He really don’t want to leave the country, but someone told him nobody cares over there if you get your ‘Purple Drank’ on.”

The long-shot team, according to the source? The Monarchs. “JaMarcus don’t want to deal with having to learn to speak British.”

Last week, Russell was arrested in Mobile and charged with possessing codeine without a valid prescription. Russell has purportedly been an aficionado of so-called “Purple Drank,” the urban cocktail favored by gangsters, rappers and other self-destructive hipsters. A key ingredient of the concoction is often codeine-bearing cough syrup

Russell was released by the Oakland Raiders in May.

Originally posted 2010-07-09 21:47:09. Republished by Blog Post Promoter