Former Indiana Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza isn’t taking anything for granted. He’s reading the tea leaves as the Las Vegas Raiders issue vague, potentially misleading quotes about making him the top pick in the draft in April, and he knows anything can happen.
“I have no job,” Mendoza said Friday at the Scouting Combine in a report written by Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk. “This is my job interview right now, and like everyone says, this is the most important job interview of your life. So, right now, I’m just doing everything to hopefully get employed April 23.”
Mendoza already has some impressive hardware for someone who considers himself a job hunter. He just won the Heisman Trophy, and he got to kiss the trophy after playing an heroic role in Indiana’s 27-21 victory over the Miami Hurricanes in the national championship game.
His comments about all this have been on the bland side so far, but this one’s a bit of an eye-opener. It opens up both himself and the Raiders for all sorts of guessing games about how well his interview with new Raiders coach Klint Kubiak really went, not to mention all kinds of speculation about what he’s been told about the Raiders’ plans at QB this year.
“Well, I have not been selected yet, and whatever team drafts me, I’m extremely grateful,” Mendoza said. “Like I said, whether it’s the No. 1 pick or whether it’s the last pick in the draft, I’d be blessed and honored to be drafted by any team. I’m going to give them [my] all.”
The quarterback also knows that he’d be landing in a bad situation if he goes to the Raiders, regardless of how much optimism there is about the Kubiak hire. He described his experience with the Raiders as a “fantastic interview,” according to Williams, but his comments about the fact that anything can happen in the draft can be interpreted in any number of ways.
“The possibility — I mean, we see how the NFL turns around so much,” Mendoza added. “The margins are so small. There are so many games decided by so few points, and the difference between a losing record and a winning record is a couple of drives, is a couple of key plays, so whatever team I’m on, I’m just going to take that advice, and take the coaching from the coaching staff, and however I can best serve my teammates on that team, I’m going to do it to the best of my ability.”
The key phrase in that word-salad quote are “whatever team I’m on.” Mendoza was recently rated a “solid NFL starter” by Pro Football Focus, and he knows his development process hasn’t exactly been linear.
That rating would justify the Raiders trading back to get more badly-needed draft capital if they chose to go there, although no one thinks that will actually happen. As Mendoza noted, though, anything can happen in the NFL, especially if you’re an “unemployed” quarterback.