Raiders name Kirk Cousins starting quarterback for Week 1
Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz discuss why Kirk Cousins being named the Raiders' Week 1 starter was telegraphed for months and that the organization believes in Fernando Mendoza. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV .
Video Transcript
The Raiders named Kirk Cousins their starting quarterback for week one against the Dolphins.
Clint Kubiak announced it, it's official, and it brings up this big conversation, 'cause everybody's screaming about Fernando getting in and playing.
Now, I got a Raiders helmet behind me.
We all know my lifelong fandom, Caroline, but let me tell you, clearly, if you paid any attention to the Raiders all the way back to the beginning of the off-season, this shouldn't surprise anybody.
John Spytek, the GM of the Raiders, said after last season that the biggest thing that they learned is they needed to be more honest about where their team was and all the work they needed to do to get to the point that they could really be competitive.
When they were first looking at the possibility of taking a quarterback, number one, he said at the time, "We don't really wanna take a quarterback and have to be forced to play him."
When they signed Kirk Cousins, he said, "We wanna make sure that we have a veteran that we can put out there.
We'd love to not play our rookie quarterback for the entire season."
Like, he has said it over and over and over again.
And for some reason, we feel like John Spytek is out here playing games, when I think more than any other GM, he just tells the truth and figures that we'll all believe that that's a lie, and then we'll go our merry way.
Like, he's made it clear for months that Kirk Cousins was gonna be the starter week one.
I'm not surprised by this.
I'm not really emotional to this.
I think this makes a ton of sense.
You play Fernando when he's ready.
You don't play him until he's ready.
And if you think Kirk gives you a better chance week one to be the best for this team, you start Kirk Cousins.
It's pretty simple to me
