Council of Elrond

(I'm going to use Glove of Radagast as the example here, but there are a number of other stage resource cards with similar language)

Glove of Radagast reads: "Place this card on Radagast if he is in play."

Is this meant to be synonymous with "Play this card on Radagast.", or is this suggesting that I can play the card just on table (potentially even starting it), and then it's moved onto Radagast when he enters play?

Thanks again.

The second. It can be in play without Radagast (as long as you declared that you were playing Fallen Radagast).