[Tigercat]

To kinda expand on what I see as JR's downfall, it is two key things in my mind. Pocket presence and personality. Now JR's outward personality out of college has little difference from Eli Manning in my mind. Both were laid back, neither were vocal leaders. No one could have known for sure that JR wouldn't care about football after he got his money, and that Eli would do what he had to do within his personality to be a Super Bowl winning QB.

The problem that could have been seen, but I see little evidence that anyone anywhere referenced it back in 2007, is pocket presence. This is something that could have been seen at LSU, as JR rarely made his biggest plays from behind center, stepping up into the pocket. His best plays were made out of the spread shotgun, rarely with pressure from multiple defenders. Watching him in the NFL, he never looks confident in the pocket, and his footwork looks horrible. IMO, this is the leading cause of his poor accuracy downfield and the fact that he makes his living completing short passes.

Now unproven pocket presence from first round QBs is nothing new. Spread QBs have been picked in the first round for years now going back to Tim Crouch. But most of them have failed. The best the Raiders could have asked themselves is, "Does he still have a lot of work to become a consistent pocket passer? Did we ask the right questions to know if he will put in that work after he is a multi-millionaire?"