The Raiders are famously responsible for one of the biggest draft misses in recent sports memory, but it wasn't for lack of due diligence.
Quarterback JaMarcus Russell lasted just three years in the league after the Raiders drafted him first overall in 2007, and according to former NFL player and RADIO.COM insider Ross Tucker, they should have seen it coming based on their own findings during the notoriously invasive scouting process.
“I've heard from very reliable sources that the Raiders actually hired a private investigator,” Tucker said on the You Better You Bet Podcast, “to follow him leading up to the draft, to see how he would handle himself. And he was like, always in Vegas, gambling in casinos.”
But the Raiders apparently dismissed or looked past the warning flags on the LSU product, then just 21 years old.
“They reported back to them, and they drafted him anyway! Like, 'screw you!’”
The NFL and its teams, with their deep resources and strong incentive to protect their brands, are known to turn over every stone possible when evaluating draft prospects, trade targets, and prospective free agents. In a league with a seemingly air-tight salary cap where the margin of success is razor-thin, teams are loathe on getting burned on bad acquisitions, whether it be for lack of character, talent, or fit.
The league itself is also known to deploy investigators to look into alleged criminal incidents involving players, coaches and other affiliated personnel.
But surveilling players without their knowledge as a matter of “research” raises all kinds of ethical issues. An unidentified team reportedly took similar measures for Odell Beckham Jr. in 2018, when it was becoming increasingly apparent that his souring relationship with the Giants could hasten his exit from New York.
These incidents combined with a handful of other high-profile stories involving spying or other espionage suggests a paranoid, win-at-all-costs culture with little regard for privacy, let alone the spirit of sportsmanship. Of course, the Houston Astros proved this attitude extends well beyond football.
Snooping aside, makeup remains a key factor in determining who will and won’t cut it in the NFL, Tucker said.
“By the way, that is a good example right there that the most important thing for NFL players -- the reason why guys are busts, more than anything else -- it's not their arm, or their legs, or their shoulders. It's either their heart or their brains, especially at quarterback. And that's why there's so many misses.
“Because until you can open up a guy's chest and see what’s he really got in his heart, what’s in side of him, or until you can open up his brain and see if he’s got it or he doesn’t, you’re really only going on physical ability. And at that level, the game is too hard — physically, mentally — it’s too complex. And it’s, only the strong survive.
“I can’t tell you how many guys were more physically talented than me, who weren’t able to make the offensive line, and I was. Because I was mentally tougher and physically tougher than they were. They could bench more, they could jump higher, they looked better, but I was going to steal their soul. Because it was more important to me than it was to them.”
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