{"id":671746,"date":"2026-01-12T15:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T15:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/671746\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T15:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T15:53:12","slug":"las-vegas-raiders-is-fernando-mendoza-lock-for-no-1-overall-in-nfl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/671746\/","title":{"rendered":"Las Vegas Raiders: Is Fernando Mendoza lock for No. 1 overall in NFL draft?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">Is Mendoza a lock to be the No. 1 pick?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">How many Las Vegas real estate agents do you think have reached out to Mendoza already? The favorite to be the No. 1 pick played like exactly that in the win over Oregon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">Mendoza\u2019s superpowers are his pre-snap recognition and accuracy, both of which were on full display. He is extremely proficient understanding where vulnerable one-on-one matchups are going to be, and then he puts the ball in a spot where only his man can make the play. It doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s an opposite-hash out route, back-shoulder throw or a boundary go pattern, Mendoza\u2019s placement to every level is fantastic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">We can debate all day where he ranks among other recent top quarterback prospects, including Caleb Williams, Drake Maye and Cam Ward (each of them being a little different type of player). But Mendoza continues to separate himself in the 2026 draft class as the best option for the Raiders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is Mendoza a lock to be the No. 1 pick? How many Las Vegas real estate agents do&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2065],"tags":[7,1744,393,2492,4241,2455,2454,6,525],"class_list":{"0":"post-671746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-las-vegas-raiders","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-las-vegas","10":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","11":"tag-las-vegas-raiders-draft","12":"tag-las-vegas-raiders-news","13":"tag-lasvegas","14":"tag-lasvegasraiders","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-raiders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115882937923302837","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}