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.
The NFL is better when the Raiders are good. Unfortunately, the Raiders haven’t been good in a long time.
One point is clear from a new article by Zak Keefer of The Athletic regarding the second Jon Gruden stint: The Raiders haven’t had, and don’t have, enough talent to contend.
They haven’t won a playoff game since the 2002 season, which ended with a Super Bowl blowout loss to the Buccaneers, in the season after the late Al Davis traded Gruden to Tampa. (Thirteen years ago, Hall of Fame receiver Tim Brown made major waves during Super Bowl week by claiming that Gruden’s replacement, Bill Callahan, wanted to lose the game.)
Since 2002, the Raiders’ only two playoff appearances happened in 2016 and 2021. The latter was by far the most impressive. Despite having Gruden forced out via the strategic leak of problematic emails sent a decade earlier (his lawsuit against the league is still pending), the Raiders nearly beat the Bengals in the wild-card round. (Cincinnati nearly won the Super Bowl that year.)
It should have resulted in interim coach Rich Bisaccia getting the job. It didn’t; the Raiders instead hired Josh McDaniels and then Antonio Pierce and then Pete Carroll and now Klint Kubiak.
The revolving door of coaches has been exacerbated by an empty cupboard of talent. Last year, they had two elite players — Maxx Crosby and Brock Bowers. Last month, they spent like drunken Tom Bradys on available free agents.
The next question is whether they’ll turn their pole position in the 2026 draft into a contending team. They have the No. 1 overall pick for the first time since drafting quarterback Jamarcus Russell instead of receiver Calvin Johnson or tackle Joe Thomas, both of whom have bronze busts in the Hall of Fame.
Fernando Mendoza will be the next potential franchise quarterback for the Raiders, unless they shock the football world and don’t take him. They need more than that. They need a better line, a better defense. Better receivers. Better everything, basically, except for Crosby and Bowers.
And they’re in a difficult division, competing with the Chiefs, Broncos, and Chargers. This year, the Raiders also will play the teams of the AFC East (including the Patriots and Bills) and the teams of the NFC West (including the Seahawks, Rams, and 49ers).
Through it all, 2002 keeps getting deeper into the rearview mirror. And the Raiders continue to be one of the lesser teams in the league.
If it ever changes, the NFL will be better for it. The Autumn Wind and whatnot. Commitment to excellence. Just win, baby.
For nearly a quarter century, the air has been dank and stagnant. The excellence has been AWOL. And the wins have been too infrequent.
The structure of the game gives every team a fair shot at competing. The Raiders simply haven’t been able to do it. And it all comes down to not having enough good players.
