The Las Vegas Raiders have their eyes on a new quarterback, but if their selection with the number one pick in this year’s draft is indeed doing to be Indiana Hoosiers’ quarterback Fernando Mendoza, they won’t get to see him throw at the combine.
"At the combine, you're throwing to different receivers, it's a whole different thing," Mendoza said. "And I want to make sure I give my guys the best chance. I want to throw at pro day with my guys, with my running backs and be there with the boys.”
Mendoza made this comment on “The Pat McAfee Show” yesterday that appeared in an ESPN piece, so it’s important to consider the environment. There’s a good chance Mendoza knows it’s nonsense, too, but that’s the way quarterbacks at the top of the draft do things these days.
What used to be an opportunity for teams to evaluate them under challenging conditions has become an on-campus opportunity to make orchestrated throws to familiar targets. The good news, at least to some extent, is that minority owner and GM have already seen Mendoza under those challenging conditions in the national championship game against the Miami Hurricanes, so they have some idea how he handles that kind of environment.
But Mendoza’s decision also puts Las Vegas on the spot a little bit. Pro Football Focus recently rated Mendoza as a “solid NFL starter,” which raises the question of whether he’s worth of the top selection in the draft, especially given the number of needs the Raiders have coming off a 3-14 season.
The quarterback’s logic in this was about timing, supposedly. The combine happens from Feb. 23 to March 2, and Mendoza said that’s too quick a turnaround given that he wants to focus on what he calls the “draft process” and his pro day.
As for his “guys,” those would be receivers Omar Cooper Jr. and Elijah Sarratt, both of whom are project to be second-round picks in the mock draft of ESPN’s Matt Miller.
Mendoza certainly is displaying an ability to say the right thing when expected. He praised Seattle offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, who’s expected to be hired as head coach by the Raiders after the Super Bowl, for his development of quarterback Sam Darnold, and he called Brady “a huge football idol of mine.”
None of that will mean much when he hits the field, though, and it will be interesting to see what Spytek and Brady have to say after seeing Mendoza at his pro day.