Allegiant Stadium (Las Vegas) — It’s hard to beat the odds here.
The Raiders are 7-27 over the last two years, the second-worst such mark in the NFL. In their six seasons in Las Vegas, they’ve had a winning record once, and as a franchise, they have not won a single playoff game in the 22-year lifetime of their rookie quarterback, Fernando Mendoza.
They are trying to climb out of the bottom of a division with a Denver Broncos team that was the AFC’s top seed last year, a Kansas City Chiefs team that’s been to five Super Bowls in seven years and won three of them, and a Los Angeles Chargers team that might be better than both of those this season. Their hometown oddsmakers give them 18-to-1 odds to win the AFC West.
It’s the exact same odds as rolling an 11 with two dice, and yet it seems even harder with the 11 the Raiders have been rolling with on any given play.
But Thursday, in just a relief appearance in a preseason game, Mendoza gave Raiders fans a bit of hope, a sign that better days are coming. And once you’ve won a Heisman Trophy and a national championship at Indiana, what exactly constitutes a long shot?
“He shows up every day, works his ass off,” Raiders Pro Bowl edge rusher Maxx Crosby told me about Mendoza in the locker room at Allegiant Stadium. “He’s doing a great job. He’s been a great addition to the locker room, and I’m super excited for him. He’s done it exactly the right way. He’s putting his head down and working, building relationships, just soaking up knowledge and getting better.”
Fernando Mendoza completed 10 of 16 passes for 97 yards and a touchdown in the Raiders’ loss to the Cardinals. (Photo by Ian Maule/Getty Images)
Thursday’s preseason debut was Mendoza’s first chance to soak things up more actively. Training camp practices can go a long way, but this was his first chance to truly feel the speed of the NFL, to appreciate how much harder it is than the college football world he dominated in a 16-0 breakout season last year.
On one play, Mendoza scrambled to his right, tried to avoid a sack and ran upfield before he went out of bounds, instead taking a hit and sailing the ball onto the sidelines. It was a lesson that some of the things he could get away with in college, he can’t in the NFL, at least right now.
“There was one play where I scrambled to the right, and usually sometimes I’ll be able to get the edge, maybe scramble for 2 or 3 yards, and it’s like ‘Wow, it got there a little faster than I thought,'” Mendoza said at the podium. “I’m really trying to get around them, try to throw the ball away, make the smart play to best serve my teammates. So I would say definitely faster, and they hit harder. So surprise, but no surprise.”
Unlike most No. 1 overall picks, Mendoza hasn’t been handed the Raiders’ starting job. First-year Las Vegas coach Klint Kubiak said after Thursday’s loss that the job is still veteran Kirk Cousins’ to lose, potentially making Mendoza wait until he’s more prepared. That’s not the norm. The last six quarterbacks to go No. 1 overall were all Week 1 starters, and the last that wasn’t was Baker Mayfield with the Cleveland Browns in 2018.
So, Mendoza watched from the sidelines Thursday as Cousins marched the Raiders down the field, with the veteran completing an efficient 5 of 6 passes for 50 yards, including a 13-yard touchdown pass to tight end Michael Mayer. Mendoza came in without all the starters in front of him, and his first drive was scuttled by a holding penalty. His second drive, though, was what Raiders fans wanted to see, starting with a 19-yard dart between two defenders and ending with a 6-yard touchdown pass on third-and-goal to receiver Jack Bech.
The touchdown pass was the highlight of a strong night for Mendoza. He completed 10 of 16 passes for 97 yards and led the Raiders into scoring territory in the final of the four possessions he played, which ended in a missed kick.
All those No. 1 picks that started in Week 1, none of them threw a touchdown pass in their preseason debut. Cam Ward, Caleb Williams, Bryce Young, Trevor Lawrence and Kyler Murray all combined for zero in their first taste of the NFL. In just a summer of practices and a few weeks of training camp, Mendoza has impressed the most decorated of his new teammates.
“He’s the same guy that we see in practice that went out there and competed on the game field,” center Tyler Linderbaum told me after his own Raiders debut. “He’s a kid that works really hard, wants to get better, wants the best for the team, and that’s all you can ask for.”
Rookie quarterbacks don’t exactly have a residency of success with the Raiders. This is the franchise of Todd Marinovich and JaMarcus Russell, of great prospects that never found NFL success. Derek Carr went 3-13 in his first year, and no Raiders rookie quarterback has ever managed a winning record as a starter. That might be asking a lot of Mendoza, as Las Vegas has managed four and three wins in the last two seasons, putting it on its sixth head coach in six seasons, including interims.
But Kubiak has a chance to change that, balancing the win-now aspect of playing Cousins with the long-term development of taking lumps with Mendoza and the greatness that could await.
“He led a good scoring drive, as far as getting in and out of the huddle and commanding the group and getting play calls down,” Kubiak said, measured in his praise. “I saw the same guy we’ve seen in practice. I see an ascending player, and we’ve just got to keep getting better.”
The Raiders need more than Mendoza to turn things around. Linderbaum’s arrival will help their run game, which will lean on second-year pro Ashton Jeanty and could get a spark from rookie Mike Washington Jr., who broke loose for a 53-yard run Thursday. The defense is still very much a work in progress — the Cardinals scored touchdowns on their first three drives against the Raiders, completing their first 15 passes and converting their first six third downs.
And if being the No. 1 pick isn’t pressure enough in today’s NFL, Mendoza takes the field under the watchful eye of Raiders minority owner Tom Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl winner tasked with helping to bring a championship mentality back to the silver and black.
There were moments Thursday that showed why Mendoza was the No. 1 pick — careful, accurate throws, with a nice pump fake here, a well-executed play-action handoff there and the confidence to stay in the pocket and be patient in an entirely new experience. His personality has not changed — a genuinely positive, squeaky-clean wholesomeness that won over his teammates at Indiana.
Can Mendoza find the same success in the NFL? Thursday offered nothing to suggest that can’t happen for him, just a question of how quickly.
“Today was an invigorating experience,” Mendoza said. “There’s not many moments where you feel fully alive, and on the field you feel fully alive, especially in the NFL atmosphere. So I want to give thanks to that. It was great to get out there, get my feet wet. That first drive, it felt a little sped up because so much anticipation and excitement. However, I feel like my teammates around me protected me very well, and they helped me. They helped slow me down, and I think it was a good experience.”
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