Mendoza Sees Becoming A Starter As ‘New Step,’ Not A Whirlwind

Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Fernando Mendoza is now the team’s starting quarterback, but the rookie doesn’t see his promotion as a “whirlwind,” which is how it’s been described in some media reports after the sudden trade of veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins to the Minnesota Vikings 

He looks at it as his “next step” according to multiple reports, including one by Ryan McFadden of ESPN. 

Mendoza called it a “once in a lifetime” opportunity, per McFadden, and he also spoke about his growing confidence and the process associated with improvement. Both of those are in keeping with his approach and comments to date, as the rookie quarterback has been relentlessly focused on coming off as a squeaky-clean hard worker. 

Coach Klint Kubiak doesn’t think any of this will be a whirlwind, because his quarterback has been preparing “the right way” from the beginning. That’s also in character for Kubiak, and it’s the biggest reason he was hired. 

Kubiak added that the Raiders won’t be “peeling back anything” in their offense, and he’s comfortable with Mendoza running the entire playbook. That makes sense as well, given that Kubiak has kept things on the simple side given the number of young players he has as he continues to rebuild the roster. 

The tough part for Kubiak will be losing games. He had chances to win behind Cousins, especially against bad teams that beat themselves, and the Raiders even played a couple of competitive games against top competition. 

Now those chances may well go out the window with Mendoza running the offense. The focus will be on having him make the right decisions, but Mendoza has had exactly one garbage-time drive against the New England Patriots under his belt, so there will be plays where the right decision gets blown up before he knows what happened. 

That’s likely to be especially true this Sunday and next week. The Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos have two of the toughest defenses in the NFL, so just playing competently will be a challenge for Mendoza. 

The hope is that the rookie quarterback will improve enough to win games toward the end of the season, especially when the Raiders take on the Los Angeles Chargers, Tennessee Titans and Arizona Cardinals. 

Those are all winnable games, and if Mendoza improves enough to get those wins it would give the Raiders a total of seven, which would make for an extremely successful season given what happened last year.