Should Fernando Mendoza be the Raiders’ starting quarterback?
Yahoo Fantasy's Matt Harmon, Josh Norris and Hayden Winks discuss Fernando Mendoza's comfort in Klint Kubiak's complicated offense and how he could push Kirk Cousins for the starting job sooner than expected. Check out the full conversation on the "Yahoo Fantasy Forecast" - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
Yeah.
Look, looked super sharp, and what we always knew about Fernando Mendoza at Indiana was these big outside patterns along the sideline, outside the numbers.
He just rips it with ease.
He's, like, very Sam Darnold-ish.
Excuse me, Sam Bradford-ish with those.
That's the comparison I keep going back to, albeit Mendoza's a bit more mobile.
But what I loved the most was, you know, he took a first down sack once they got into the red zone, and that made it about second and goal from the 12 yard line, and he went full field progression, one, two, three, to this backside return to Ian Thomas to set them up then, at the six yard line for third and goal, and then he fires it in there to our guy Jack Besh for the touchdown in, like, this really, really tight window.
And so it shows you that, hey, even when a negative play can happen on first down, that we're already seeing a comfort level in a Cl- Kubiak offense to go first, second, third full field read.
And I guess m- the question coming out of this, and we're gonna get two more weeks of it, is all off season, all of the Raiders brass from Tom Brady to Spy Tech to whoever else is saying, "Well, Kirk Cousins is gonna start for a very long time, and we don't need Fernando Mendoza."
Hayden, where are you at?
Do you think that's gonna change at all from here?
I mean, objectively, Fernando Mendoza's ready to go, like, right away.
Like, I thought that he did awesome going through his reads.
I thought that they missed a touchdown opportunity.
That was not his fault, and that was a really good readout by him.
That out route that yous- talked about to Jack Besh was really clean.
He was not playing much under center in college, and then he did that, in his preseason debut.
I thought he handled it well.
I thought Kirk Cousins also played pretty well, as well.
The other, like, big note that I saw with the Raiders is just, a diversity in the personnel groupings.
Their first drive is a long drive.
Yeah.
They had 11, 12, 21, and 22 personnel.
There was under center, and there was motion.
There's play action reps. Like, this looked like a, you know, complicated offense in that the fact- Mm-hmm that Fernando Mendoza right away was able to, to execute it, I think it's like, what are we waste- wasting our time for?
Like, Kirk Cousins, like, I think that he would do just fine in this offense as well, but, I think he's ready to go right now.
