Fans can boo and chant all they want. Flood the message boards, blogs and forums, if you so desire. Go ahead, campaign for Bruce Gradkowski and Charlie Frye until silver-and-black blood oozes from your pores.

The Raiders are committed to quarterback JaMarcus Russell come hell or high passes, and coach Tom Cable has no intention of making a change anytime soon.
“I haven’t thought about that yet,” Cable said. “I know it’s on everyone’s mind. Right now, the big picture is for this team to clean up a lot of areas. If (quarterback) was the only area that I thought really needed to be changed, then it’s easy, but it’s not.”
The Raiders not winning as many games as they want transcends Russell’s subpar play, Cable said. Things such as a porous run defense, dropped passes and missed blocks and tackles are just as much to blame.
Those things magnify Russell’s struggles through three games. Yet, it’s Russell who bears the brunt of fans’ frustrations, as evidenced by their booing him and chanting “Russell sucks!” for most of the Denver Broncos game last Sunday.
Welcome to the life of an NFL quarterback, veteran Gradkowski said.
“We take blame for what goes on, no matter if it’s our fault or not,” said Gradkowski, the primary backup. “And it goes along with success as well. We’ll take the success just as well as the bad. That just goes along with the position. They always say the No. 2 guy is the favorite guy on the team.”
That’s where Gradkowski finds himself these days, the object of fans’ affection. The fans received a sneak peek of Gradkowski in the regular-season opener, when Russell injured his shin in the fourth quarter and missed a handful of plays.
Gradkowski completed all four of his passes, though two were negated by penalties. Russell returned and delivered a 57-yard touchdown on a fourth-and-14 play that gave the Raiders a 20-17 lead that they later squandered.
Many of those same fans who cheered Russell’s heroics that night were the ones who booed Russell throughout the Broncos game.
Deal with it, Cable said.
“He’s going to have to get used to that because that’s not going to stop until he goes and proves himself,” Cable said of his third-year quarterback. “So, you either have to accept that or it will eat you up.”
Russell said he is aware of the mounting criticism. Yet, he perseveres by staying on an even keel, as he puts it, and doing the same things that got him this far.
The out-of-the-gates success enjoyed by the Falcons’ Matt Ryan and the Ravens’ Joe Flacco last season, as well as that of the Jets’ Mark Sanchez and the Lions’ Matt Stafford this season makes it even more difficult for the Raiders to stress patience in regard to Russell’s development.
“You can talk about the Matt Ryans and people like that who get it right away but, by and large, at that position it does take a little more time,” Cable said. “Obviously, more time than any coach wants it to take, but you have to live with some of those growing pains.”
The Raiders paid Russell $32 million guaranteed as the No. 1 pick of the 2007 NFL draft. He played in four games his rookie season and started 15 last season.
He enters Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans as the owner of the league’s lowest passer rating and worst completion percentage. “I worked to be that (No. 1) guy,” Russell said Thursday. “If you look at it closely on film, things aren’t as bad as people make them out to be. I practiced to be that guy, from beginning to end.”