Fernando Mendoza didn't come to Las Vegas to hold a clipboard. The Raiders made the Indiana product the No. 1 overall pick in this year's draft after he threw for 3,535 yards and 41 touchdowns against just 6 interceptions while going 16-0 and winning a national title, then signed him to a 4-year, $57.27 million fully guaranteed rookie deal. Kirk Cousins was still named the starter to open training camp. But the gap between those two facts is getting smaller by the day.
Raiders rookie quarterback Fernando Mendoza is expected to get plenty of experience in Thursday’s preseason opener against the Cardinals, coach Klint Kubiak said Tuesday. More via @ryanmcfadden_: https://t.co/0H4R3Q54QA
Kubiak confirmed Tuesday that Mendoza will get real run in Thursday's preseason opener against the Cardinals, telling reporters the rookie will get plenty of experience even with the starters expected to play. That's not throwaway garbage-time language for a No. 1 pick — it's a chance for Mendoza to show what he's been building all camp.
Mendoza has mostly worked with the second team through camp, but he got his first real look with the starters last Saturday when Cousins was sidelined. That absence wasn't random rest — Cousins and star pass rusher Maxx Crosby got into a heated shoving match during an 11-on-11 period after Crosby hit Cousins twice in the same rep, and Kubiak held both players out of practice the next day for violating team rules. It's the kind of camp drama that tends to speed up quarterback conversations.
That backdrop is exactly why insider chatter is starting to sound less speculative. Vinny Bonsignore is now saying Mendoza has a "real chance" to win the job and that there's an "actually a real QB battle" brewing at Raiders camp — not the usual rookie-developmental framing teams like to put on a first-overall pick behind a veteran.
Cousins, for his part, still has the résumé edge — he started 10 games for the Falcons last season, throwing for 1,721 yards with 10 touchdowns against 5 interceptions. Experience like that is exactly why the Raiders handed him the QB1 label out of the gate. But Kubiak has also praised Mendoza's growth this camp, saying the rookie has been making adjustments and not repeating mistakes, while cautioning that live competition snaps are "a whole other animal" compared to practice reps.
Thursday night against Arizona is where that theory gets tested in public for the first time. If Mendoza looks the part running with real NFL bodies around him, the noise coming out of Raiders camp only gets louder — and a quarterback situation that was supposed to be settled starts looking a lot more open.