{"id":850154,"date":"2026-04-02T22:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/850154\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T22:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:29:14","slug":"las-vegas-raiders-grade-for-signing-kirk-cousins-ahead-of-drafting-fernando-mendoza-raiders-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/850154\/","title":{"rendered":"Las Vegas Raiders grade for signing Kirk Cousins ahead of drafting Fernando Mendoza | Raiders News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While the Las Vegas Raiders are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reviewjournal.com\/sports\/raiders\/fernando-mendoza-possible-no-1-pick-of-raiders-begins-his-pro-day-workout-3732364\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">widely expected to draft Fernando Mendoza<\/a> as their franchise quarterback, the powers-that-be have been clear they would like to see him learn under a veteran at the position.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>They found that potential mentor Thursday when they agreed to terms <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reviewjournal.com\/sports\/raiders\/agent-kirk-cousins-agrees-to-deal-with-raiders-3732767\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">with free agent Kirk <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reviewjournal.com\/sports\/raiders\/agent-kirk-cousins-agrees-to-deal-with-raiders-3732767\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cousins<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a quick analysis of the move:<\/p>\n<p>Raiders\/Cousins grade: A<\/p>\n<p>Coach Klint Kubiak has been clear about his desire to find a mentor for Mendoza that can not only show him the ropes of being a pro, but also potentially start games early in the season to ease the rookie\u2019s transition to the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>There probably wasn\u2019t a better candidate than Cousins, who worked with Kubiak for three seasons with the Minnesota Vikings.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s likely to be a very team-friendly deal, as well.<\/p>\n<p>Contact Adam Hill at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reviewjournal.com\/sports\/raiders\/grading-the-raiders-signing-of-quarterback-kirk-cousins-3732835\/mailto:ahill@reviewjournal.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ahill@reviewjournal.com.<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AdamHillLVRJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">@AdamHillLVRJ<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Las Vegas Raiders are widely expected to draft Fernando Mendoza as their franchise quarterback, the powers-that-be&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2074],"tags":[223,254,2554,224,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-850154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-falcons","10":"tag-atlantafalcons","11":"tag-falcons","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116337479884329677","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850154","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=850154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}