{"id":690462,"date":"2026-01-20T05:38:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T05:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/690462\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T05:38:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T05:38:17","slug":"raiders-tom-brady-experience-fernando-mendozas-magic-before-no-1-nfl-draft-pick-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/690462\/","title":{"rendered":"Raiders, Tom Brady experience Fernando Mendoza’s magic before No. 1 NFL Draft pick"},"content":{"rendered":"

Raiders, Tom Brady experience Fernando Mendoza’s magic before No. 1 NFL Draft pick<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tom Brady and a whole host of Las Vegas Raiders<\/a> representatives were in Miami on Monday night.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

They were there to watch Indiana Hoosiers QB Fernando Mendoza, the likely No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, the spot held by the Raiders.<\/p>\n

Mendoza didn’t disappoint.<\/p>\n

In fact, he was heroic, culminating in his magical fourth-and-5 touchdown run shown in the picture at the top of this article. He broke multiple tackles before just laying out to cross the goal line.<\/p>\n

If there was even a sliver of doubt before, there isn’t now.<\/p>\n

The Raiders will, barring a massive shock, take Mendoza with the first overall pick.<\/p>\n

And with him, they’ll have their franchise quarterback.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Indiana Hoosiers just completed best story in college football history<\/a><\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

He’s a brilliant young man, well spoken, driven and immensely talented.<\/p>\n

This is exactly the guy the Raiders need.<\/p>\n

They need a leader, a game changer, a culture setter. Mendoza is every one of those things.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you can get those players late in the draft, like the Patriots<\/a> did with Brady.<\/p>\n

But usually, they come near the top of the board. This case, at the top.<\/p>\n

There are surely other teams that would want Mendoza. They may even call the Raiders to try and make the trade.<\/p>\n

But there won’t be any maneuvering for Vegas. By being the worst team in the NFL this season, the Raiders set themselves up to land the face of their franchise.<\/p>\n

His name is Fernando Mendoza, and he’s a national champion with the Indiana Hoosiers in the final game of his college football career.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Fernando Mendoza just had his true Heisman moment<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Raiders, Tom Brady experience Fernando Mendoza’s magic before No. 1 NFL Draft pick originally appeared on The Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[4955,3619,7,4725,393,216,6,15,5654,1369],"class_list":{"0":"post-690462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-fernando-mendoza","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-indiana-hoosiers","12":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","13":"tag-miami","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-nfl-draft","16":"tag-the-raiders","17":"tag-tom-brady"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115925818110443741","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690462","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=690462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}