The Las Vegas Raiders signed veteran QB Kirk Cousins to backup and mentor future No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza, but he might not be the backup for the first few weeks.
The Las Vegas Raiders finally seem destined to crawl out of the hole it has been in for several years after making regime changes and spending big in free agency.
Raiders general manager John Spytek led the search and found his franchise’s next head coach in Klint Kubiak, the Super Bowl-winning offensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks, after just one season with former head coach Pete Carroll, who went 3-14 in 2025.
Kubiak is the highly-respected young offensive mind that many teams around the league are looking for and despite the Raiders embracing a rebuild and making sure its candidates knew it would take time, Kubiak agreed to join the organization and help lead the Raiders back to a competent and competitive level.
With Kubiak and several talented coaches on its staff, the Raiders seem to have the right people in place to get this train on the right track. It also helps when the franchise has tons of salary cap space to use in a loaded free agency class and actually uses it.
Las Vegas signed the top free agent center, Tyler Linderbaum, to a three-year, $81 million contract to kick off free agency and added numerous notable players like linebackers Quay Walker and Nakobe Dean to help reshape the defense.
The best rebuilds always feature good free agent signings coupled with great drafting, and the Raiders will be drafting its franchise quarterback with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 National Football League draft in a couple of weeks.
The biggest problem that the Raiders have been facing aside from its worst-ranked offensive line is not having a franchise quarterback. Indiana quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza is the heavy favorite (who are we kidding, everyone knows Las Vegas is selecting him) to land with the Raiders, but he might not start right away.
Las Vegas signed veteran QB Kirk Cousins to help mentor Mendoza and teach him the ways of the NFL, and there’s speculation that Cousins could be the starter in the early going while Mendoza sits and learns. ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. doesn’t believe the 22-year-old will have to wait long to start, though.
“All these rookie quarterbacks play, right?” Kiper said Wednesday. “You think about Cam [Ward], you think about [Jaxson] Dart, you think about Shedeur [Sanders], you think about [Tyler] Shough. They all play, right? And I think with Kirk, he was competing with Michael Penix Jr., now he’s the mentor for Fernando Mendoza.
“He knows Mendoza is the franchise quarterback, he’s there to teach him the ropes. So, if he has to play four, five, six games, fine. If Mendoza is ready for game one, he’ll be out there. But at some point, either right away or early-to-mid, Fernando Mendoza is going to be the quarterback and [the Raiders] will never look back. They feel they have the quarterback to get the Raiders back to where they want to be, so no, he won’t have to wait long to be the starter there.”
Unless it’s clear Mendoza should start during the first few weeks of the season, having Cousins be the guy isn’t a bad idea. Considering their playstyles are quite similar, Mendoza watching Cousins cook with a new and improved offense would be a good thing as he learns from one of the more prolific pocket passers of this generation.