We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
Vikings Clips
All of the international matchups for the 2026 NFL season were announced on Wednesday morning.
We already knew the first two games on the schedule. The 49ers and Rams will meet in the NFL’s first-ever game in Melbourne, Australia in Week 1 while the Ravens and Cowboys will head to Brazil to play a game in Rio in Week 3.
There will be three straight weeks of games in London kicking off the next week. The Colts will face the Commanders at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Week 4 and the Eagles and Jaguars will square off in the same place the next week. The Jaguars will stay in London to take on the Texans at Wembley Stadium in Week 6.
From there, it will be on to Paris for the first time in league history. The Steelers will battle the Saints at Stade de France in Week 7.
The Bengals-Falcons matchup in Madrid in Week 9 was announced earlier this week and it will be followed by a Patriots-Lions clash at Allianz Arena in Munich the next weekend. The NFL’s return to Mexico City will come in Week 11 when the Vikings and the 49ers square off on Sunday Night Football.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has talked about his desire to see the league play international games each week and the NFL is moving closer to that goal in 2026.
The Vikings requested interviews with Lions assistant General Manager Ray Agnew, Broncos assistant GM Reed Burckhardt and Dolphins assistant GM Kyle Smith for their General Manager job, Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports.
Agnew joined the Lions in 2021 when Brad Holmes became the GM. He was previously with the Rams as director of player personnel.
Burckhardt became the Broncos’ director of player personnel in 2022, but spent 13 years with the Vikings as a pro scout before that.
Smith is in his first year with the Dolphins, but held the same role with the Falcons from 2023-25. He worked his way up in the Commanders’ organization from 2010-20, becoming vice president of player personnel before leaving for the same job with the Falcons in 2021.
The team now has nine external candidates plus internal candidate Rob Brzezinski.
Chargers assistant GM Chad Alexander, 49ers assistant GM RJ Gillen, Bills assistant GM Terrance Gray, Rams assistant GM John McKay, Seahawks assistant GM Nolan Teasely and Titans assistant GM Dave Ziegler are the other candidates.
Adrian Peterson had an eventful trip to the Vikings’ facility last week.
Peterson thought he was in town to speak to the team’s rookies ahead of their minicamp, but the Vikings had something to share with him. While Peterson was filming content for the team’s website, former Viking John Randle entered the room and showed Peterson a display that revealed he has been elected to the franchise’s Ring of Honor.
Peterson was the seventh pick of the 2007 draft and he spent 10 years with the Vikings. Peterson led the league in rushing three times during that stint, including a 2,097-yard season in 2012 that ranks as the second-best single-season effort in NFL history. He was named the league MVP that year and is the last non-quarterback to win the award.
Peterson, who is the Vikings’ all-time leader in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns, also set the NFL record for single-game rushing yards by busting loose for 296 yards in a 2007 game. He will also be eligible for election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame for the first time in 2027, so there could be back-to-back honors for Peterson in the near future.
The Vikings have officially added a pair of young defensive players.
Minnesota announced on Monday that the club has signed defensive lineman Smith Vilbert and linebacker Bangally Kamara.
Both Vilibert and Kamara had participated in Minnesota’s rookie minicamp on a tryout basis.
Vilbert split his time in college between Penn State and North Carolina, playing for the Tar Heels in 2025. Kamara began his collegiate career at Pitt before transferring to South Carolina and finishing his time at Kansas last season.
The Vikings have added quarterback Kyler Murray to a depth chart that includes 2024 first-rounder J.J. McCarthy. So who will win the starting job?
It’s all TBD.
“They envision it being a true competition: Kyler Murray versus J.J. McCarthy,” Tom Pelissero of NFL Network recently said on The Rich Eisen Show, via NFL.com. “And both these guys are going to go into this believing they’re gonna win this job. I don’t know frankly how friendly that quarterback room is going to be. It’s going to be a very competitive quarterback room.
“From everything that I’ve understood, it is truly wide open. They’re keeping an open mind as a coaching staff.”
A “true competition” favors Murray, in our view. He’s more accomplished. More proven. All things equal, he should be able to win the job.
For McCarthy to win it, he’ll need to step up. Ball out. Outplay the first overall pick in the 2019 draft. The player who was named offensive rookie of the year before making it to the Pro Bowl in 2020 and 2021.
Even if McCarthy wins the job, he’ll need to hold it. That means staying healthy. He has missed all of his rookie year due to a preseason knee injury. In 2025, he missed seven games.
A “true competition” will help both get ready to play. Chances are they both will.
The question becomes when the competition will end. At some point, the Vikings need to get their starter ready for the regular season. Which means getting him all of the first-team practice reps, sooner than later.
And one key factor in the competition is the opinion of the locker room. If one player stands out over the other, the rest of the players will know. And they’ll expect that guy to be the guy.
The Vikings currently are looking for a new General Manager. They already have a coach.
On Friday, the coach was asked about the search.
“First and foremost, just out of respect for the process, it’s currently ongoing, you know, I would defer . . . everything to ownership, and [Vikings COO] Andrew Miller as that process is ongoing,” Kevin O’Connell said. “I’m excited for potentially forming that relationship, going through the process, and as much of a part as ownership and Andrew want me to be a part of it, I will. . . . [V]ery much looking forward to a great outcome, which I know we’re gonna get.”
O’Connell was asked whether he’ll be talking to the candidates to be interviewed by the organization.
“In whatever capacity that ownership and Andrew have for me as their plan, that’s what I’m gonna do,” O’Connell said. “You know, obviously, it’s an important time. It’s important. It’s clearly an important hire, but I have so much respect in the process-driven, the process-oriented aspect of not only our ownership, but Andrew Miller, that I know we’re gonna get to that good outcome.”
It’s definitely important. And it’s critical that the new General Manager and O’Connell will be fully aligned. It needs to be a team effort. The G.M. must acquire players the coaching staff wants, and keep the players the coaching staff needs. There needs to be little or no daylight between the G.M. and coach.
The biggest question is whether the new G.M. will report to O’Connell, whether O’Connell will report to the new G.M., or whether they’ll be deemed as equal in the eyes of ownership.
Regardless, O’Connell is the proven commodity. He has a record of 43-25 in four seasons, with a 13-win season in 2022 and a 14-win effort in 2024. And he did it with a G.M. whom ownership decided to fire after the 2025 season.
The best organizations have a G.M. and coach who are fully on the same page. When adversity strikes (and it will), they need to work even more closely together. For some teams, losing results in finger pointing and infighting. The coach blames the G.M., and the G.M. blames the coach. One goes, one stays.
That’s recently happened in Minnesota. Not because the team lost too many games, but because the team has failed to fulfill the potential it has shown since O’Connell became the head coach. That alone should give O’Connell a little more juice going forward.
Rookie minicamps routinely include more than rookies. In Minnesota, veteran quarterback Cooper Rush will participate on a tryout basis.
The team has announced 57 attendees for the weekend session. Of that number, 23 have been invited to the weekend practices on a tryout basis.
Rush, 32, has played in 42 regular-season games with 16 starts. He has a 9-7 record.
The Ravens cut him earlier this year, after making Tyler Huntley the primary backup to Lamar Jackson. Before that, Rush spent seven seasons with the Cowboys, starting eight games in 2024 and five in 2022.
Although the Vikings have four quarterbacks on the roster, they need arms for the rookie minicamp. And they neither drafted nor signed as an undrafted free agent any rookie quarterbacks.
Joining Rush on a tryout basis will be Aidan Bouman. His father is former NFL quarterback Todd Bouman, who played for the Vikings, Saints, and Jaguars.
The Vikings got most of their draft picks signed in one fell swoop.
Eight of the team’s nine picks signed with the team on Friday. That group includes first-round pick Caleb Banks.
Banks was the 18th overall pick and the defensive tackle’s four-year deal includes $21.28 million in fully guaranteed money. As is the case for all first-round picks, Banks’ contract also includes a team option for a fifth season.
The Vikings also signed third-round defensive tackle Domonique Orange, third-round offensive tackle Caleb Tiernan, third-round safety Jakobe Thomas, fifth-round fullback Max Bredeson, fifth-round cornerback Charles Demmings, sixth-round running back Demond Claiborne, and seventh-round center Gavin Gerhardt.
Second-round linebacker Jake Golday is the team’s only unsigned pick.
Carson Wentz’s 2025 season ended with a left shoulder injury that required surgery in October. He originally injured his shoulder Oct. 5, while playing in place of starter J.J. McCarthy.
Wentz played through a dislocated shoulder that included a torn labrum and fractured socket until he couldn’t.
The veteran quarterback, who made NFL history by starting at least one game for his sixth different team in six seasons, recently shared an update on his rehab.
In an interview with Luke Gamble of KFYR-TV, Wentz sounded optimistic about participating in the team’s organized team activities.
“Physically, I feel great,” Wentz told Gamble. “Shoulder’s more or less behind me now. It wasn’t fun by any means, but surgery went well, and rehab’s gone really well, too. So for me, it’s behind me. I’m healthy, and I’ll be ready to roll.”
Wentz re-signed with the Vikings despite Kyler Murray also being in the room. The two veterans will compete with McCarthy for the starting job.
“It’s a different dynamic obviously in the room with a couple other guys and having Kyler now in the mix,” Wentz said. “It’s fun. It’s fun to compete. It’s fun to get to know guys in another way. But I think just the competition in the environment will make everybody better.”
Wentz said he “will be ready however it goes.”
