Mendoza’s A Starter, Now His Challenges Start For Real

Rookie quarterback Fernando Mendoza just became the starter for the Las Vegas Raiders, who have been trying to engineer a soft landing for his full-blown debut. Most reports had that occurring after the Raiders’ Week 13 bye, which would have him facing the Los Angeles Chargers at home. 

Now, though, his debut just got a lot tougher. Mendoza will face the ferocious Seattle Seahawks defense, although at least it will be at home. 

But that might not be much of an advantage. The Denver Broncos faced Seattle at home a couple of weeks ago, and the result was a narrow win in overtime for the Broncos in which the Seattle defense completely shut down quarterback Bo Nix and company late in the game to force an overtime. 

The Raiders offense, meanwhile, has been relying on the decision making of veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins, who was doing a superb job in that regard until Sunday’s 38-17 loss to the San Francisco 49ers. That resulted in him being dealt to the Minnesota Vikings on Tuesday just hours before the trade deadline. 

Will Mendoza be able to duplicate that level of decision making? Probably not, and that’s the argument against making this trade. The Raiders have been able to protect Mendoza for far longer than anyone expected as Las Vegas went 3-0 to start the season, then played competitive games against the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills. 

Now it’s Mendoza’s show, ready or not. He won’t have anything even remotely resembling a running game, but he will have two superb tight ends in Brock Bowers and Michael Mayer. 

The wide receiving group is sketchy at best, but there have been occasional flashes from Tre Tucker, and Jalen Nailor has started to make some catches here and there. 

The offensive line may not be able to open holes for running backs Ashton Jeanty and rookie Mike Washington Jr., but they have been pass blocking well, per a report from Sam Warren of The Athletic. Part of that has been about Cousins being able to set protections, change plays at the line of scrimmage and recognize hot reads, though, and Mendoza has exactly one garbage-time drive against the New England Patriots in that category. 

This was probably a good trade, but it was a tough time to make it. The Raiders still have Aidan O’Connell available if Mendoza struggles too much, but he gets the Denver Broncos defense after Seattle, so this is as close as it gets when it comes to breaking into the NFL.