The Raiders are expected to take Fernando Mendoza with the no. 1 pick in the draft and according to league insider Jason La Canfora, the Mendoza hype isn’t just a made-up narrative in the media.
La Canfora said this week that teams around the league believe the Raiders have made up their mind on Mendoza and the chances of Tom Brady and company trading the pick are close to zero.
“The Las Vegas Raiders are prizing the first-overall selection in the draft, intending to use it on Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, according to team and league sources, and are almost certain to rebuff any and every trade overture for the pick,” La Canfora reported on Wednesday.
“The Raiders brass is dead set on selecting him, and already this early in the offseason that first overall selection is being viewed as virtually unattainable by other teams who would be inclined to move up to try to select Mendoza themselves.”
La Canfora shared statements from executives around the league, and neither believed a trade involving the first pick is going to be a realistic possibility.
“‘You aren’t getting that pick from Brady,’ said one NFL general manager who is eager to upgrade at quarterback as soon as possible. ‘It’s not for sale. Mendoza is their guy. It’s like when (Bengals owner) Mike Brown had the first pick and [Joe] Burrow was coming out. They weren’t going to move that pick. Same thing here.’”
“Another GM said: ‘Is somebody going to throw three ones (first-round picks) at them to draft the kid from Indiana? That’s not going to happen. They’re drafting the quarterback.’”
“Of course, things could change between now and the draft at the end of April,” La Canfora continued, “but it’s already clear the Raiders are putting a massively high price on the first selection, and other front offices are already starting to operate as if Mendoza, who won the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s top college player, is off the table.”
Mendoza doesn’t have a lot of critics around the league, but there are some who believe the Raiders aren’t a good landing spot for the Heisman-winning quarterback.
Colin Cowherd discussed Mendoza this week and said he was worried the Raiders won’t be a good “parent” to Mendoza at the NFL level.
“I’m going to listen to criticisms [on Mendoza]. I just don’t buy any of them, so far. Until today. This one feels legitimate,” Cowherd said on The Herd.
“There’s an NFL analyst who calls something ‘pressure to sack rate’ and how many negative plays you have, how long you hold the ball, and if you look at last year in the NFL who had a really high pressure to sack rate, it was Geno Smith, J.J. McCarthy and Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward. He has Mendoza’s pressure to sack rate the same as Justin Fields. And what have we said about Justin Fields? He doesn’t see the field very well, holds the ball too long. Now Justin Fields is hyper athletic, and he still has negative plays.”
“I look at Caleb Williams [in] his first year. He had all sorts of sacks and negative plays. Why would that be? Because his coach stunk,” Cowherd continued.
“So I don’t worry about Fernando Mendoza. I worry about the Raiders as his parent in this league. Bad O-line. Even if Klint Kubiak is a good coach, he’ll probably be the fourth best coach in his division, ownership is impulsive and ridiculously impatient. I don’t have a Mendoza issue. I have a Mendoza to the Raiders issue.”
x: @raidersbeat