{"id":865734,"date":"2026-04-13T20:48:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T20:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/865734\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T20:48:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T20:48:16","slug":"former-raiders-general-manager-gasses-up-the-fernando-mendoza-bandwagon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/865734\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Raiders general manager gasses up the Fernando Mendoza bandwagon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heading into April 23 and the start of the 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, it has become a lead-pipe lock the Las Vegas Raiders will be taking Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza No. 1 overall. Not that any other confirmation was necessary, but Kirk Cousins has essentially <\/a>confirmed that with all he has said since he signed with the Raiders to be Mendoza’s veteran mentor.<\/p>\n

Mendoza has also apparently been working with former San Francisco 49ers quarterbacks coach Brian Griese to learn the Raiders’ offense<\/a>, which further locks in that his arrival in Las Vegas is a mere formality.<\/p>\n

Rooted in Mark Davis’ willingness to fully empower Jon Gruden<\/a> when he came back to be the head coach, Mike Mayock’s tenure as Raiders’ general manager did not go well. But he remains a well-respected analyst, even if his time as a big part of NFL Network’s draft coverage was quite a while ago now.<\/p>\n

Mike Mayock joins the bandwagon to praise Fernando Mendoza<\/p>\n

During a recent appearance on Sirius XM NFL Radio<\/a> with Lindsay Rhodes and Sam Bruchhaus of Sumer Sports, Mayock offered praise for Mendoza.<\/p>\n

“Got a good arm, can drive it back-shoulder at a high level, accurate at all three levels”, Mayock said. <\/p>\n

“This is the key to me. He’s at his best when his best is necessary. I call it a quarterback’s nervous system. When I’m watching quarterback tape…once I get done (with) three or four or five full games, then I go to the situations like third down, red zone, goal line, fourth quarter. You wanna see what that nervous system looks like, especially in big games.”<\/p>\n

Mayock said the more he watched Mendoza, the more he liked him, the more he respected him and the more the presumed No. 1 overall pick reminded him of a common comp.<\/a><\/p>\n

“He reminds me of a young Matt Ryan. A young Matt Ryan to me is a baby-faced assassin, with great intangibles, football IQ, work ethic.”<\/p>\n

Mayock did note a couple common concerns with Mendoza, which are common to a lot of incoming rookie quarterbacks. He took too many sacks in college on a per pass attempt basis, and he generally needs to learn to get the ball out of his hands faster. <\/p>\n

But otherwise the former Raiders’ general manager said he’s “all in” on the team’s all-but officially anointed quarterback of the future, as a lot of people are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heading into April 23 and the start of the 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, it has become a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2065],"tags":[7,1744,393,2455,2454,6,525],"class_list":{"0":"post-865734","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-lasvegas","12":"tag-lasvegasraiders","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-raiders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116399368032823853","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865734","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=865734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}