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.
Bucs Clips
When Florida attorney general James Uthmeier posted his latest letter to the NFL regarding his ongoing assault against the league’s diversity policies, he didn’t include the league’s response to his initial letter. To have a full understanding of the situation, it would be helpful to have both.
And so we’ve obtained and reviewed the May 1 letter from NFL general counsel Ted Ullyot to Uthmeier.
The four-page letter explains the league’s position regarding the manner in which its diversity policies comply with Florida law and federal law. The letter also clarifies some of the information contained in Uthmeier’s initial letter.
“Simply put, the NFL does not permit the consideration of race, sex, or any other legally protected characteristic in any hiring decisions or employment actions,” Ullyot writes in the opening paragraph of the letter.
“Diversity of the candidate pool, both on the field and off, is also a critical part of the NFL’s success, and ‘it is the policy of the NFL and all member clubs to hire from a broad, diverse, and growing pool of high caliber talent, and to support equal opportunity and fair hiring practices throughout the League,’” Ullyot says. “The League defines ‘diversity’ expansively to include the ‘broad ranges of human difference among us.’”
As to the Rooney Rule, Ullyot explains that it does not “compel any hiring or discharge decision, or direct that anyone be ‘discriminated against.’ It operates solely in the interview process, such that clubs consider a broad set of candidates before making a hiring decision. It does not prevent a club from interviewing any candidate.” (Emphasis in original.)
Ullyot’s letter also emphasizes that various other NFL diversity policies do not mandate hiring decisions.
As to the recent revisions to the NFL’s website regarding the Rooney Rule, footnote 11 at page 3 explains that Uthmeier’s letter “has brought to our attention some outdated information.” The footnote states that the “information is in the process of being updated to accurately reflect the NFL’s current programs and policies.”
Uthmeier obviously wasn’t persuaded by Ullyot’s letter, given the response Uthmeier sent to the NFL on May 13 — and in light of the subpoena Uthmeier has served on the NFL. Regardless, the battle lines have been drawn; the NFL believes its policies require a broad search, and that the policies do not infringe on the ability of the individual teams to hire whomever they choose. Uthmeier believes otherwise.
Four quarterbacks will be featured on the third season of the Netflix series Quarterback.
The streaming service announced on Wednesday that Cam Ward, Jayden Daniels, Baker Mayfield, and Joe Flacco will be featured on this edition of the show. The show will chronicle the quarterbacks’ experiences during the 2025 season and will premiere on July 14.
Each quarterback’s storyline should have some interesting moments. Ward went through his rookie season with the Titans after being selected with the first pick of the draft while Daniels’s much-anticipated second season with the Commanders was wiped out by injuries. Mayfield thrived early in the year, but he and the Buccaneers struggled later in a year that ended without a playoff berth. Flacco opened the season as the starter for the Browns, but was traded to the Bengals to fill in for the injured Joe Burrow.
Burrow Kirk Cousins, Jared Goff, Patrick Mahomes, and Marcus Mariota were featured on the first two seasons of the show.
Long-time NFL assistant coach Tom Moore hasn’t retired, after all. The 87-year-old offensive guru will return to where it all started.
Iowa.
Via Scott Dochterman of The Athletic, Moore will serve as senior consultant to the head coach and offensive advisor at the school where Moore played quarterback from 1958 through 1960. He also started his coaching career there, from 1961 to 1962.
Moore’s coaching career after leaving Iowa took him to Dayton, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Minnesota, the New York Stars of the WFL, and Minnesota again before becoming an NFL assistant coach in 1977.
He spent 13 seasons with the Steelers, four with the Vikings, three with the Lions, and one with the Saints.
Moore arrived with the Colts in 1998, Peyton Manning’s rookie season. Moore served as Manning’s offensive coordinator for the first 11 years of his career, before taking on a senior position in 2009 and 2010.
Moore then went to the Jets for a year, the Titans for a year, the Cardinals for five years (with head coach Bruce Arians). After taking 2018 off, Moore reunited with Arians in Tampa Bay, where Moore worked as an offensive consultant from 2019 through 2025.
In all, Moore has won four Super Bowl rings — two with the Steelers (1978, 1979), one with the Colts (2006), and one with the Buccaneers (2020). Now, 64 years after leaving Iowa, his career is coming full circle.
Buccaneers wide receiver Emeka Egbuka has talked about the heightened expectations that are coming his way with Mike Evans now on the 49ers and the team’s offensive coordinator thinks he’s up to taking more on his shoulders.
Zac Robinson used to coach Cooper Kupp with the Rams and he said on Tuesday that Egbuka has a very similar approach “just in terms of the way his brain works with the game of football and his natural instincts.” Robinson believes that will make it easy for Egbuka to slot into the offense that is being installed this offseason.
“He doesn’t have to change a thing,” Robinson said, via the team’s website. “I think he’s come back, he’s refreshed. He played a ton of snaps and obviously played a lot of college football leading into that season and played a ton of snaps [there]. I think Mek’s just going to take huge, huge strides. He knows the new terminology and is asking great questions. Mek’s just got to be Mek and do his thing and he’ll be just fine.”
Robinson said that the plan is for Egbuka to settle into the flanker role in the team’s base offense, but that his football instincts make it easy to move him around in order to exploit matchups and maximize the production of the passing game this fall.
The Buccaneers signed running back Kadarius Calloway, long snapper Scott Daly, outside linebacker Yasir Holmes and wide receiver Dean Patterson IV on Monday, the team announced. All four players were tryout participants in Tampa Bay’s rookie mini-camp last weekend.
In corresponding moves, the club also waived long snapper Wesley Brown, wide receiver Noah Short, outside linebacker Benton Whitley and running back Owen Wright.
Also, the Bucs’ claim of linebacker John Bullock off waivers from the Colts was processed on Monday.
Calloway played collegiately at New Mexico State University (2025), the University of California (2024) and Old Dominion University (2023). He combined to appear in 32 career games and totaled 1,185 rushing yards and nine rushing touchdowns across 229 carries, while adding 35 receptions for 223 yards and one score.
Daly entered the NFL as a college free agent with the Cowboys in 2018. The sixth-year veteran has appeared in 76 career games between the Lions (2021-23) and Bears (2024-25), recording nine special teams tackles and two fumble recoveries.
Holmes played collegiately at Tarleton State University (2025) and Frostburg State University (2021-24), totaling 46 career games and recording 188 tackles, 22 sacks, three forced fumbles and one fumble recovery.
Patterson IV played collegiately at Georgia Tech (2025) and Florida International University (2022-24), appearing in 52 career games and totaling 106 receptions for 1,556 yards and 10 touchdowns.
The Buccaneers are adding some competition on special teams.
Per Greg Auman of FOX Sports, Tampa Bay has agreed to sign long snapper Scott Daly.
Daly participated in Bucs rookie minicamp over the weekend on a tryout basis.
Auman notes Daly will compete with Evan Deckers to be Tampa Bay’s full-time long snapper.
Daly, 32, spent the last two seasons with Chicago, serving as the team’s LS. He was previously with Detroit for three years.
The Buccaneers made two roster moves on Saturday.
They signed Nebraska linebacker Javin Wright, bringing their total of undrafted rookies to 15. In a corresponding move, they waived first-year running back Michael Wiley with a non-football injury designation.
Wright appeared in 46 games in six seasons at Nebraska, moving into the starting lineup as a senior and leading the team with 86 tackles and nine tackles for loss. He also added three sacks, one interception and four passes defensed while playing in 12 games and starting 10.
Overall, Wright made 13 starts for the Cornhuskers and finished with 180 tackles, 12 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks and three interceptions.
Wiley first joined the Bucs last October, spending the second half of the season on the team’s practice squad before re-signing on a futures contract in January. He played his college ball at Arizona and originally entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent with the Commanders in 2024.
Veteran receiver Scotty Miller, who spent the 2024 and 2025 seasons in Pittsburgh, has found no takers in free agency. He’s participating in the Bears’ rookie minicamp on a tryout basis, in an effort to win a spot on the 90-man offseason roster.
As Larry Mayer of the team’s official website explains it, Miller made a “dazzling diving catch deep down the right sideline” on the last snap of Friday’s minicamp practice.
“He’s got a history with [receivers] coach [Antwaan] Randle El,” Bears coach Ben Johnson told reporters. “Randle El was with him when he was a young buck there in Tampa, so there are some shared experiences. Looking forward to seeing him run around and compete a little bit. From afar, I’ve been able to see the speed, quickness. [He’s] certainly very intriguing.”
A sixth-round pick of the Buccaneers in 2019, Miller won a Super Bowl in 2020 with Tampa. After four seasons there, he spent a year in Atlanta before joining the Steelers.
The 2020 season was his best, by far, with 33 catches for 501 yards and three touchdowns.
Linebacker John Bullock is rejoining the Buccaneers.
Tampa Bay claimed Bullock off waivers on Friday, a day after the Colts waived him. Indianapolis had claimed Bullock off waivers in January after the Bucs released him.
Bullock signed with the Bucs as an undrafted free agent in 2025, and he was one of three undrafted free agents to make the team.
He played 15 games with the Bucs in 2025, seeing action on five defensive snaps and 253 on special teams. Bullock totaled 10 tackles.
