{"id":677494,"date":"2026-01-14T21:02:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T21:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/677494\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T21:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T21:02:14","slug":"fernando-mendoza-takes-another-big-step-toward-las-vegas-raiders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/677494\/","title":{"rendered":"Fernando Mendoza takes another big step toward Las Vegas Raiders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Many believe Fernando Mendoza will be the No. 1 overall pick of the Las Vegas Raiders in the NFL draft in April no matter what.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Well, that narrative just took a big step toward becoming reality.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Wednesday, Oregon quarterback Dante Moore announced he will go back to school for the 2026 season and not enter the draft. Mendoza and Moore were expected to be the top two prospects in the draft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Raiders, of course, own the No. 1 pick and badly need a quarterback. It\u2019s been widely expected that Mendoza will be the choice, especially after he completely outplayed Moore in a semifinal game last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">But the truth is, the Raiders would have closely studied Moore in the draft processs as well. While Mendoza would have been the favorite, the team wouldn\u2019t have made up it\u2019s mind for months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">There are no other quarterbacks considered to be worthy of a top pick. Mendoza must declare next week after the Hoosiers play Miami in the NCAA championship game Monday. He is widely expected to do so.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">So, it seems the Raiders\u2019 choices at No. 1 will either be to draft Mendoza or trade the pick. The New York Jets, who pick No. 2, could have major interest and they have a lot of draft ammo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">While this is considered a weak overall quarterback class, the 2027 class is expected be excellent with Arch Manning, Moore, LaNorris Sellers, Julian Saying, CJ Carr and DJ Lagway currently all expected to be top prospects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many believe Fernando Mendoza will be the No. 1 overall pick of the Las Vegas Raiders in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677495,"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-677494","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\/115895477706045922","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677494","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=677494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}