The Heisman winner survived a brutal pick-six and relentless pressure to show flashes of poise, leaving the Raiders’ quarterback competition wide open heading into the regular season.
Las Vegas Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak didn't play veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins in the team's second preseason game. And, frankly, there was no reason for Cousins to take snaps.
That meant No. 1 overall pick and reigning Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza saw his first official start of his NFL career, although it didn't go very well.
Mendoza threw a pick-six on a throw he likely wanted back, and he finished the game without scoring a touchdown.
In the end, the Raiders did win the game against the Houston Texans on the road with a 22-20 final, and QB3 Aidan O'Connell scored the game-winning rushing touchdown in the final seconds.
Still, Mendoza's start was bittersweet. Grant Gordon of NFL.com had takeaways for the game, and he provided the good and the bad for Mendoza.
The bad was that the Raiders QB struggled against a backup Texans defense.
"However, the most worrisome aspect of the game was Mendoza largely getting pummeled by the Texans' backup defense. It’s arguable that Houston’s defensive reserves could be as good as some teams’ starters, but it’s still troublesome that the 2026 NFL Draft’s No. 1 overall pick was hit five times, pressured on 37.5% of his dropbacks and sacked once," Gordon wrote.
Meanwhile, it also wasn't the Raiders' starting offensive line, although you still hope to see some better play from someone as highly-touted as Fernando Mendoza.
Just like he did in college, Mendoza didn't let the early mistake ruin the rest of the game. The positive development is that he didn't look rattled, which is exactly what we saw during his time at Indiana.
"On the positive side, Mendoza never looked too rattled, threw some good balls and his intangibles are clearly magnetic," Gordon wrote.
Dan Orlovsky also spoke about Mendoza's performance during the "Pat McAfee Show" on Friday.
"Fernando Mendoza has had moments operating under center in the preseason that have been awesome..For so long he has played in shotgun and it's just not gonna happen overnight..There's steps that are needed in his development," Orlovsky said.
At the end of the day, Mendoza didn't do horrible, especially after getting off to a tough start.
Following the game, Kubiak even failed to name a starting QB for Week 1, leaving some questions as to if the franchise decides to troy Mendoza out there despite the plan always being Cousins as the QB1.
The Raiders have one more preseason contest remaining, so it will be worth seeing what Kubiak and the Raiders decide to do with their franchise QB.
