The Raiders signed Kirk Cousins to be a veteran leader at quarterback, someone who can help establish how the team would like its offense to work under new head coach Klint Kubiak.
While Las Vegas is highly likely to select Fernando Mendoza at No. 1 overall next week, the team would like to make sure Mendoza is ready before he ascends into the starting lineup.
Asked about what Cousins brings to the team on Tuesday, General Manager John Spytek noted that the club can’t have enough good players in the QBs room.
“Well, he’s played really good football in this league for a long time, and he went through, obviously, a challenging time early in his career, ends up in the same draft class as the second overall pick, and somehow he comes out of that on top,” Spytek said, via transcript from the team. “He’s been able to do what he’s done at different stops along the way. There’s a high level of maturity there.
“There’s an understanding of Klint’s offense that I think will help Aidan [O’Connell] and any other quarterbacks that join the group. He’s won, he’s hard working, he’s detailed, he’s smart, he’s been a great teammate places he’s been. … Just anytime you have a veteran quarterback in a room that’s played at a high level that you believe can still play well and play at a high level, I think that helps everybody — especially the coaching staff will sleep a little better at night.”
Cousins has said that he feels like Mendoza will be “a great addition to the room” and is willing to support the young QB to the degree that he can.
Last season, Cousins appeared in 10 games with eight starts for the Falcons, completing 61.7 percent of his passes for 1,721 yards with 10 touchdowns and five interceptions.
The Raiders will not anoint Fernando Mendoza as their starting quarterback immediately after drafting him next week. And they may not make him their starting quarterback in September, either.
Raiders General Manager John Spytek said Mendoza and Kirk Cousins — and even Aidan O’Connell — will all have an opportunity to show they deserve the starting job before a Week One starter is named.
“Ultimately, this is a meritocracy, and the best guy will play,” Spytek said. “It’s just really hard to play really well at a young age, but we’ve seen plenty of quarterbacks do it recently. And how that goes going forward here, we added Kirk, we have Aidan, and we’ll see how it goes. But the best man will play.”
The Raiders haven’t officially confirmed they’ll draft Mendoza with the first overall pick, but Spytek wasn’t exactly hiding it as he talked about wanting rookies to play when they’re ready to play.
“We all want to see the young guys play, we want to see them play well, but we don’t want to put anybody out there, regardless of the position, who’s not ready,” Spytek said.
The last six quarterbacks picked first overall have started Week One of their rookie years. Not since Baker Mayfield in 2018 has a first overall pick started his career on the bench.
But Spytek said it’s tough for quarterbacks to make the transition from college to the NFL and the Raiders wouldn’t want to rush a young quarterback onto the field.
“It’s a hard position to play, and there’s a lot to learn beyond throwing the football and being a good teammate,” Spytek said. “A lot of these guys, they live their entire life in shotgun. They don’t huddle. So yu really got to teach some of these guys how to run a huddle, how to break a huddle, how to get under center and call a cadence because you see so many of them clap now, too. It’s far beyond learning a playbook, which in and of itself is hard enough. When you can be patient — and we all understand there’s not a ton of patience in the job that we chose here — but if you can find some level of patience and put people in positions when they’re ready, that’s the best way forward.”
If Mendoza is ready, he’ll start when the regular season opens in five months. If not, that’s why they signed Cousins.
The Raiders have the No. 1 overall pick, and it seems a certainty they will draft Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza.
General Manager John Spytek acknowledged other teams have an interest in the top pick, but said the Raiders will use the pick without saying the Raiders will use the pick.
“We’ve gotten a few calls, and those teams know where they stand right now,” Spytek said Tuesday, via Adam Hill of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The Raiders signed veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins as a bridge quarterback until Mendoza is ready to play. The team could fill out the card before the draft, unlike last year when they had to wait to take running back Ashton Jeanty sixth overall.
“A lot less energy spent on hypotheticals,” Spytek said. “There’s only one team that can get the exact person they want, and we have that option available to us if we so choose.”
You do indeed learn something new every day.
Today, we learned this: For nine days in 1960, the Oakland Raiders were known as the “Señors.”
As posted by team’s Twitter account, the change to Raiders happened on this day, 66 years ago. The video attached to the post includes quotes from local officials who explained that the change was made due to “public demand.”
The franchise had partnered with the Oakland Tribune to hold a contest to come up with a name for the team. More than 10,000 submissions were made.
The finalists, per a 2020 item in the San Jose Mercury News, were Admirals, Lakers, Raiders, Diablos, Mavericks, Seawolves, Gauchos, Nuggets, Señors, Dons, Costers, Grandees, Sequoias, Missiles, Knights, Redwoods, Clippers, Jets, and Dolphins.
As the story goes, Tribune sports writer Scotty Stirling (who would later be the team’s G.M.), there was a practical reason for resisting the name. “We don’t have the accent mark for the ñ in our headline type,” Sirling said.
And so, nine days after the Oakland Señors were born, they disappeared. The Raiders arrived.
The Raiders have an opening on their offensive line depth chart.
The league’s daily transaction report for Monday shows that they placed tackle Joshua Miles on the reserve/retired list. Miles no longer counts against the 90-man roster limit and the Raiders will hold onto his rights in the event he decides to return to action.
Miles joined the Raiders’ practice squad last December and re-signed with the team in January. He also spent time with the Bears and Browns last year, but did not appear in any regular season games.
Miles was a 2019 seventh-round pick by the Cardinals and played in 17 games for Arizona before playing one game for the Giants in 2024.
