{"id":860006,"date":"2026-04-08T01:23:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T01:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/860006\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T01:23:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T01:23:25","slug":"fernando-mendoza-to-watch-the-nfl-draft-with-family-and-friends-ap-source-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/860006\/","title":{"rendered":"Fernando Mendoza to watch the NFL draft with family and friends, AP source says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fernando Mendoza, expected to go first overall to the Raiders, will watch the NFL draft with family and friends in Miami, someone with knowledge of the quarterback\u2019s plans said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

That person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because Mendoza hasn\u2019t made his plans public.<\/p>\n

The draft will take place in Pittsburgh starting April 23, and many top players will be there to receive congratulations and a hug from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. But players, even those who are drafted first, sometimes prefer to watch from a different location.<\/p>\n

Defensive end Travon Walker in 2022 and quarterback Trevor Lawrence in 2021 were the two most recent top picks to watch from afar.<\/p>\n

Raiders officials have signaled they would like to ease Mendoza into the starting lineup without expressly saying they will draft the player who won the Heisman Trophy<\/a> and led Indiana to the national championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Las Vegas signed veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins<\/a> last week likely with the idea of him starting while Mendoza watches and learns from the sideline. Cousins is in Las Vegas for offseason workouts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fernando Mendoza, expected to go first overall to the Raiders, will watch the NFL draft with family and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,6,15,498,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-860006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-nfl-draft","11":"tag-nfl-football","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116366475409123066","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860006","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=860006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}