It’s been over a month since Indiana Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza has been picked apart, so it’s time for another go-round. The latest for the prospective top pick comes from Ted Nguyen of The Athletic, and it definitely gives Raiders fans food for thought.
Nguyen’s initial thoughts echoed those of experts, which belie the assumption that a quarterback who’s a national champion with a Heisman Trophy in his trophy case would be an accomplished pocket passer. Instead, the writer characterized Mendoza as a “traits-based quarterback that needs development, but he’s still worthy of the No. 1 pick."
Mendoza doesn’t have an elite arm, but he can make high-level throws to all areas of the field, and he throws an excellent deep ball, according to Nguyen. He has all the basics down, including the ability to read and understand coverages, and his timing and footwork are both good.
What the quarterback has that matters most is the attributes of a typical NFL quarterback who’s going to play in the Shanahan/McVay system, and that includes new Raiders coach Klint Kubiak. In many ways it’s astounding that he’s about to be selected first, but this draft is very thin on quarterbacks, with only a couple of marginal possibilities to join him in the first round based on pre-draft buzz.
Mendoza hasn’t played under center much, but his quarterback coach at Indiana, Chandler Whitman, confirms that what’s really being sold here is potential.
“he beauty is his capacity is really high,” Whitmer said. “Like I said, he’s got a yearning to learn and then he has the ability to understand, compartmentalize and then take it to the field.”
Whitmer’s comp was Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert, but that feels like a huge stretch. Herbert did have some of the qualities Whitmer mentioned—intelligence and the ability to process at high speed--but Herbert also had an elite arm that Mendoza lacks.
Mendoza also has the ability to play mistake-free football, which will doubtless be a big Kubiak ask, but he’ll probably still have the usual rookie limitations. It’s hard to imagine him putting up points with the Raiders offense as currently constituted, and a lot of the backhanded compliments Mendoza is drawing raise the question of whether Las Vegas will go with a veteran bridge quarterback.
We still haven’t seen Mendoza’s pro day, but that likely won’t matter much. He’ll make a series of scripted throws designed to make it look like he has a big arm, but phrases like “traits-based quarterback” and “solid NFL starter” don’t exactly move the needle the way they should for the top pick in the draft.