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.
Titans Clips
It looks like Titans head coach Robert Saleh and offensive coordinator Brian Daboll won’t have to wait long for matchups against the teams they used to coach.
Saleh was the head coach of the Jets from 2021 until he was fired during the 2024 season and NFL reporter Jordan Schultz reports that his first game with the Titans will be a visit from his former employers. It will be the second straight year that the Jets go down memory lane to open the season as they faced Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers in Week 1 last year.
Daboll was hired by the Titans after his three-plus years as the Giants’ head coach came to an end 10 games into the 2025 season. Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post reports that the Titans will visit the Giants at MetLife Stadium in Week 3.
That stadium is also the home to the Jets, so the game will elicit some memories for both of the new Titans coaches.
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.
Before 2011, first-round draft picks rarely agreed to terms on their rookie deals before the Fourth of July. Nowadays, plenty of them sign before Memorial Day.
On Friday, Titans receiver Carnell Tate, the fourth overall pick in the 2026 draft, agreed to terms on his slotted four-year deal.
Like all first-round picks, it’s fully guaranteed.
The contract pays out $51,134,914, with a $33,649,028 signing bonus.
The value of the first-round deals is driven by the spot in which the player was drafted. There’s not much to negotiate. Which has resulted in more and more rookie deals being negotiated quickly.
Tate’s deal put the second (Jets edge rusher David Bailey), third (Cardinals running back Jeremiyah Love) and fourth (Tate) picks under contract. Raiders quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the first overall pick, has not yet signed.
The Titans were awarded wide receiver Courtney Jackson off waivers on Friday.
The Giants waived Jackson on Thursday after he signed a futures contract with the team earlier this offseason.
Jackson spent last season on the Seahawks’ practice squad.
The Broncos signed him as an undrafted free agent in 2025.
Jackson has never played a regular-season NFL game.
The Titans also announced they waived receiver Hal Presley in a corresponding move.
Exactly one month to the day since the first photos of Patriots coach and NFL reporter Dianna Russini emerged, TMZ has supplemented its report regarding the renting of a boat by the pair in June 2021 with a video of them on the dock.
On the surface, the video doesn’t add much to the broader story. Yes, it confirms the accuracy of the prior TMZ account. But it doesn’t tell anyone anything new.
Here’s the broader point, which the TMZ reporting on the Vrabel-Russini situation reconfirms: It’s not going away, and multiple outlets will continue to look for more.
What else is out there? Given that much of the evidence published to date shows little effort to be discreet or secretive, there could be plenty. And it could continue to drip, one drop at a time.
The broader question is whether and when Russini will tell her story. If/when she does, it will be tested against the information already available — and it will invite ongoing efforts to find anything that may contradict whatever she says.
As it relates to Vrabel, there’s the question of whatever he has said privately to explain the situation to his wife and family. If, as could be reasonably expected, a full account of the extent of the relationship was demanded and if the story omitted the Tennessee boat excursion while Russini was noticeably pregnant, that’s another issue Vrabel will have to navigate while focusing on preparations for the 2026 season.
At some point, it could become impossible to balance the issues in his personal life with a job that, once training camp opens, will consume his life. That’s why each additional development matters. And why, at this point, it would be foolish to assume there won’t be more.
Titans quarterback Cam Ward is learning a new offense before his second NFL season and that process appears to be going well.
Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll is responsible for the construction of the scheme that the Titans are going to run this season and he said that the first overall pick of the 2025 draft has proven to be a quick study in their time working together.
“He is a young professional,” Daboll said, via the team’s website. “He wants to be great. He is instinctive. When we are just watching the tape, he is able to communicate the things that he sees and why he did certain things when we watch the tape from last year. When we are installing the new system to him, concepts and things like that, he is able to pick things up very quickly. It has been awesome to work with him.”
Ward and Daboll will have a lot more time to work on honing the quarterback’s fit in the offense and the hope is that the new approach and changes to the roster lead to more positive results than Ward experienced last year.
The Vikings are not officially announcing their interviews for General Manager, but three more candidates for the role have now been reported.
According to multiple reports, Minnesota has put in an interview request for Titans assistant G.M. Dave Ziegler and 49ers assistant G.M. RJ Gillen. Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports notes the Vikings have also put in a request for Chargers assistant G.M. Chad Alexander.
Of this group, Ziegler has previous G.M. experience, having served in that role for the Raiders in 2022 and 2023. He was fired midway through his second season, along with former head coach Josh McDaniels.
Gillen has spent the last 11 seasons with the 49ers. He was promoted to assistant G.M. last year after serving as director of player personnel for two years.
Alexander has been the Chargers’ assistant G.M. since 2024. He was previously with the Ravens’ personnel department from 1999-2018 before serving as Jets director of player personnel from 2019-2023.
It’s impossible to know whether the situation involving Patriots coach Mike Vrabel and NFL reporter Dianna Russini will result in Vrabel stepping down as coach of the Patriots (or, possibly, taking a leave of absence for the 2026 season), because it’s always possible that more information will come to light.
More information has come to light.
TMZ reports that Vrabel and Russini rented a boat together in June 2021, in Tennessee. The report includes a copy of the waiver they both signed, and a photo taken by Vrabel with staff members at the boat rental company. (Russini, per the report, declined to be photographed with staff.)
In June 2021, Russini — who is married — was pregnant with her first child.
The new report adds to a tapestry of evidence that started with photos of Vrabel and Russini at an adults-only resort in Sedona, Arizona in March 2026. Later photos surfaced of Vrabel and Russini at a New York City bar in March 2020, and at a Mississippi casino in January 2024.
What else is out there? Outlets like TMZ and the New York Post, among others, are surely looking for it.
The overriding question is whether, and when, Russini will tell her story. If/when she does, one line of questioning will focus on the time they rented a boat, while she was married to someone else.
The most important question is whether Vrabel will be able to continue to coach the Patriots. He missed the third day of the 2026 NFL draft to attend “counseling.” Every additional piece of evidence that confirms the existence and duration of the relationship could the thing that forces Vrabel to step aside, for the 2026 season or perhaps longer.
Free agent cornerback L’Jarius Sneed is no longer facing any criminal charges in Texas.
Sneed’s attorney Michael J. Todd told ESPN that all of the charges against his client have been dropped. Sneed was initially charged with aggravated assault for a December 2024 incident that saw his assistant accused of shooting at another man outside of a car dealership. A grand jury later indicted Sneed on a lesser charge of failure to report a felony, but he is now clear of all charges.
A lawsuit filed against Sneed related to the incident is still pending.
Sneed was released by the Titans in March. He was limited to 12 games over the last two seasons due to injuries and had 26 tackles in seven appearances last season.
