Albert Breer on Arch Manning’s TRUE Value, Why Vegas LOVES Mendoza, Sorsby To NFL?

And the look in Brady's face was, he could be the guy.

That's what it's supposed to look like.

All right.

Welcome in.

It's the Brew Report for Wednesday, May 6th.

We are into offseason programs and rookies being on boarded and soon enough we'll have OTAs, which is the actual beginning.

Of football practice for all 32 teams.

We're gonna have all that covered for you, kind of in that in between now, um, with the draft in the rearview mirror.

And so, what I wanted to do today was hit 3 topics that I've written on that relate to both this year's draft and next year's draft, which should be, um, an incredibly, incredibly strong and relevant draft class.

Uh, based on what we all see coming and what we've all seen coming for a while here, both the quarterback position and the other premium positions.

Uh, but that's another story for another day.

We're gonna start today looking back, and that's the vetting of Fernando Mendoza.

You know, really over the last couple of months, I've stayed in touch with the Raiders on how they've, um, gone through the process in vetting Fernando Mendoza, and I think what I wanted to do here was color in.

Um, what looks like the outline of the process that we've drawn for you over the last couple of months and what they're doing and, and, and having guys on the ground live at games in the fall, being there in the playoffs, then the combine, the 30 visit, the pro day, all of that different stuff along the way.

It really shows.

That this was not a coronation, and it may have felt that way because the minute Fernando walked off the field at at Hard Rock Stadium as a national champion, as the As the Heisman Trophy winner.

Everyone presumed correctly that he was gonna be the number one overall pick to the Las Vegas Raiders.

But the Raiders were committed to going through a full process.

So I'm gonna take you through a little bit of that right here, right now, and then encourage you to go and check out the bigger story that we have at the MMQB.

com.

So really the process started in the fall.

And the Raiders knew that they were gonna be looking at quarterback prospects, and um they wanted to get as many boots in the ground as they possibly could to try and look at all of the quarterback prospects.

Because remember, back in September, nobody was, nobody was anointing Fernando Mendoza, the number one.

Overall pick.

In fact, I think you would have found people saying maybe it's Garrett Nussmeyer, maybe it's Drew Aller.

Uh, no one was saying that it was gonna be Fernando Mendoza.

Uh, but over the course of time, of course, that happened and that was through the initial vetting, uh, the initial, the initial scouting, um, that the, the, the Raiders were doing on the quarterback class, and the first boots in the ground.

Experience for the general manager John Spytek was at an Oklahoma Auburn game all the way back in September with the thought that Oklahoma's quarterback who was off to a hot start, John Matt, could be on the radar.

Um, so, what are they looking for when they're going out and they're, they're going through the process?

Well, you're looking for things that you can't see on tape when you're at these games live.

And so, that could mean watching a guy warm up.

It could mean interaction with the teammates, it could mean How do you react to adversity?

The quarterback throws a pick.

What are his next moves?

Is he going to his coach?

Is he going to his teammates?

Does he have his head in his towel?

Is he walking around and working on the sideline?

All those different things.

And so, uh, that process again started with that Oklahoma Auburn game.

All the way back in September.

And then as the season went on, Mendoza became a more and more relevant prospect.

So, over the, over, over Thanksgiving weekend, the, the, the, the Raiders' top brass , the top scouting brass, John Spytek, the general manager, Brian Stark, their assistant GM.

Planned a trip to see 22 prospects ahead of their, or 3 quarterback prospects ahead of their game, um, against the Chargers in Los Angeles.

They went to Fort Worth to see TCU's Josh Hoover, who interestingly enough is now at Indiana, and Cincinnati's Brendan Soars, we will get to Soars being in a 2nd.

And they went to Purdue to go and see Fernando Mendoza live.

Coldest game in Purdue history.

Um, and one of the first things that Spy tech noticed was how detailed Fernando Mendoza's warm-up was.

And that sounds like a little thing, but it shows.

You know, kind of where a quarterback's head is at.

And Spytech won championships with Tom Brady in Tampa and with Peyton Manning in Denver, two of the most prepared quarterbacks of all time.

And so seeing the detail in, in Fernando Mendoza's process of getting ready for a game.

Reminded him of those guys.

So that's a little thing that you take, other things that you take from that game, and that's the first time they, they, they, they saw him play.

It was the coldest game in Purdue history.

This is a kid who grew up in Florida, who played his 1st 3 years of college ball in California.

So he got off to a little bit of a slow start.

He winds up bouncing back.

That shows resiliency.

Then when they wound up talking to him about that night, what did he say?

I was wearing too many clothes.

I had too many layers on.

Um, and that shows a, in their mind at least, a level of conscientiousness in the quarterback, like how can I make this better the next time.

So those are the little things they take from that initial vetting.

Um, they did not, the, the, the, the, the, the Raiders were not at the, the Big 10 title game the next week against Ohio State, but there was something to take from that game.

He took a huge hit from Cayden Curry and the first play of the game, was knocked out for a play, came back in, and led the team to victory, um, and the clincher of that in that, in that game, and that was a game that was not perfect Fernando for Fernando Mendoza.

But the clincher in that game comes after fighting through some adversity.

He has Charlie Becker down the 30, down the, down the, the right sideline on a 33 yard goal ball, um, to essentially put the game away.

Um, then, the next, the, the, they, they have a live exposure, um, seeing him in the semifinal against Oregon, and then finally in the championship game, and Tom Brady makes it to that championship game.

Well, for that championship game, um, there were Instances where you just saw things from Fernando Mendoza and how he was reacting to things and how he was lifting his teammates up , and Tom Brady was in the box for that.

And both Spytek and Stark had experiences that night where they looked at Brady and the look in Brady's face was, he could be the guy.

That's what it's supposed to look like.

So you have those experiences with Tom Brady who sets the tone for that organization, especially at that position.

And you can see some of that coming together.

Then, the combine, um, they get him on the whiteboard, and this is after the coaching search, first chance for Clint Kubiak to get in front of Fernando Mendoza.

Same thing for Andrew Ginoco, the, the offensive coordinator that Kubiak's bringing with him from Seattle.

And so they spent the 1st 5 minutes or so of the 18 minutes allotted .

Getting to know him and then they get into the football.

And, you know, about 5 minutes in, Ginoco gets up on the board and he installs a play, um, on the whiteboard, puts it up, explains everything about the play.

It's a very detailed play, a very complex play, then wipes the whiteboard clean.

They look at a handful of plays from, uh, from, from, from Fernando Mendoza's senior year at Indiana.

They go through the plays.

It doesn't take more than Fernando Mendoza seeing the pause screen with the offensive formation, the defensive structure of the opponent.

In every case, before they could even hit play, he knows what play that they're bringing up, which shows an incredible level of recall.

And then when they're done with that, the very end of the 18 minutes.

They put him up on the whiteboard and asked him to teach the play back to them, which he was able to do.

So that's a big thing to check off as well.

Um, after that, they've got the pro day.

Um, they sent a large group, um, to, to Bloomington for the pro day.

Um, it was Brian Stark, Brandon Hunt, Brandon, Brendan Year again, Andrew Ginoco, um, you know, Mike Sullivan, a group of people getting on a private jet, flying from Vegas to Arizona to go pick up Spytek and Kubiak at the NFL owners meetings, then they go to Bloomington, and they have a full day.

Um, and so there's a, there's , there's, there's a, there's a workout, which they get to see him throw live again.

There's another whiteboard session which he knocked out of the park, and then.

They have him pick the restaurant, him set up the dinner, they allow him to arrange everything, and then , and that's a little thing, but it's like, OK, like, is he able to kind of run the show on something like this?

And he was able to run the show on that, and they went and had a good dinner at the Uptown Cafe.

Um, they got to see a little bit more of Fernando Mendoza, the person.

And then that brings us to the 30 visit, which full day of meetings in Vegas.

He was able to sit down with Tom Brady.

For the first time.

So, it was Mendoza, Brady, Spytek for a significant amount of time together, sat down with the coaches.

They're able to see him around everyone in the organization from the ownership level all the way down to support staff, see how he treated people, see how he interacted with people, and then finally, they wrapped that day up.

With dinner at the Summit Club, which is one of the minority owner, Michael Melvin's Discoveryland properties.

For those who aren't familiar, Discoveryland has all these exclusive properties across the world.

The Yellowstone Club in Montana is one of them .

And they take them to a place called Gino's inside the Summit Club, which is an upscale restaurant.

They, they have different courses coming out, all of that, and They get to see Fernando Mendoza now in that setting, and that is the last box to check where it's, OK, where's ownership at on him?

And he sits with Mark Davis, and he is engaged with them.

He wants to know how Mark Davis got the Raiders from Oakland to Vegas.

He shows a real command of the history of the franchise, which is very much speaking Davis's language.

Um, and then the next week, they wrap it up, they bring the owners into the draft room, and, um, yeah, they reveal what's called the top, the, the, the, the, the, the, the 135 board, which is basically a vertical, vertical stack of the top players in the draft in their opinion.

And Mark Davis sees Fernando Mendoza's name up there and he says, I see the quarterback at the top and Spytech responded, yup, and he's gonna stay there and he did stay there and he was the #1 overall pick.

Again, I would encourage you guys to go and check out that story.

I think we have a lot of cool details in that story, um, and taking you through the process and it was a very real process, not a coronation for Fernando Mendoza in making Mendoza a Raider.

Um, our second topic for today, and this one is an interesting one to me, um, and I think it's gonna be an interesting one for all of us to follow over the course of the months to come.

And that's Arch Manning, NFL prospect.

The Texas quarterback is now going into his 4th college season.

He's gonna be a redshirt junior in the fall, and for the 2nd straight year, there is this presumption in some circles that he's gonna be the #1 overall pick.

I don't think he's there yet.

I think the ceiling for him is that he, he can get there.

But I think if you talk to most NFL teams at this point in the calendar, they would tell you Dante Moore from Oregon.

is probably on the inside track to being the number one pick.

That doesn't, again, this is not an insurmountable lead.

I don't think this is Caleb Williams in 2024 or Trevor Lawrence in 2021, where we knew so far ahead of time to be number one, but I would say that Moore probably has uh an edge right now over Arch Manning at Texas, over CJ Carr at Notre Dame, over Julian San at Ohio State.

So where does that leave Manning?

I think the mistake that most people are making with Manning.

Is they are looking at him.

As if he is Eli slash Peyton Manning, plus.

A great athlete.

And that's not what we're looking at.

He's a different type of player, and I've heard people say this, and I think it's correct.

He probably projects a little bit more like his grandfather to the NFL than his uncles.

In that, he's still raw as a passer, and all that stuff that Eli and Peyton had when they were coming out of Ole Miss and Tennessee, respectively.

He's not there yet, when it comes to operating from the pocket, when it comes to reading a defense, when it comes to seeing the field correctly, like, he doesn't have that yet.

He's a big athletic kid who can make plays out on the edge, who got better over the course of last year, and the consistency of his accuracy and not looking at the rush, all that stuff started to come along over the course of the 2025 season.

But he still has a ways to go, to get where, to get to where everybody thinks he already is by the 2027 draft.

And so, again, like this is not a shot at Arch Manning, and by all accounts, he is a phenomenal kid, great teammate, great worker, humble, all of that stuff.

He checks all of those boxes, and he's 6'4, and he's a big, strong, athletic kid, and you can see the ceiling with him.

But I don't think he's quite like his uncles.

He's a different type of player.

It doesn't mean that he's worse as a prospect.

He's just a different type of prospect.

And I think if things work out, and those areas that I was talking about, keeping his eyes downfield, getting more consistently, consistent with his accuracy, staying in the pocket and seeing the field better.

Those things come along.

I think we're gonna be looking at him as a Justin Herbert type of prospect.

And that again, is a very good player, and I think there's a good comparison to be made there in the person, and the player, and all of that.

But he's not, I, I, I just think that there's this perception out there that with the quarterback stuff, which is where Eli and Peyton were really advanced, right?

The traditional quarterback stuff.

I'm not sure he's quite where his uncles were.

It doesn't mean he can't eventually get there.

But I just think he's a different type of prospect than his uncles were.

And the sooner we start looking at him, looking at him, looking at him that way, I think the more correct people's takes on him will become.

Um, all right, finally, uh, our third topic, Brendan Soarsby.

We hit on this a little bit last week.

We'll hit on it again.

Um, the news over the weekend was that he hired famed labor lawyer, Jeffrey Kessler to handle his case.

And Kessler's been a bit of a boogeyman for the NFL, for the NCAA, for a variety of other sports leagues.

He's been an important piece of lockouts and strikes over the course.

Of his very accomplished career.

And so, you know, I think the, the, the, the, the, the idea out there might be, OK, like they're bringing in Jesse, Jesse, Jesse, Jeffrey, Jeffrey Kessler to sue the pants off the NCAAA.

That's not what this is.

OK.

They've hired a, you know, an all-star legal team at tech to handle this.

Obviously, the Soarsby side has Kessler coming in, and the goal here is to accelerate the process.

And so if there is a settlement with the NCAA where they can negotiate a suspension because he wants to play college football in the fall.

Then they're gonna find that they're gonna, they, they wanna figure that out as quickly as they possibly can so they can plan this kid's future.

It doesn't mean they won't sue the NCAA if it doesn't, if the NCAA won't budge.

Um, and remember, to be clear, the NCAA hasn't levied a penalty yet, but this seems like a pretty cut and dry case in that.

A player in any sport bets on any sport at his school, not just the sport he plays, and he loses his eligibility permanently, right?

And so, we have the admission of guilt here already.

We know what the penalty for the crime is.

This is gonna be a precedent-setter for the NCAA.

So it seems unlikely that the NCAA would allow him onto the field in 2026.

But having the lawyers on hand now, is a way of trying to expedite the process so they can get to an answer faster.

They could still sue at the end.

If they decide to do that, what they would do is they would file for an injunction.

And to get an injunction, you have to prove that you've got a reasonable chance of winning the case.

And again, with how black and white this is, it seems murky that they would get an injunction.

Could there be a tech-friendly judge in, in, in, in, in, in Ludwick?

Sure, that could happen.

But in that case, it does seem like the easier path would be just to declare for the supplemental draft.

And as we've said, I think there's a very good chance that someone would bid at least a 2nd-round pick, and maybe there's an outside chance someone bids a 1st-round pick to try to get him at the beginning of July.

So it's gonna be really interesting to see the way that all of this plays out.

Um, but I still think he's seen as a very high-end prospect.

There are people within the NFL who love him, who think he's got the talent to be a top 5 pick, um, at the quarterback position.

Um, if he had had a great year at tech this year, he had a chance to be the number 1 overall pick.

I think he would have been right there in that mix with Moore and Manning and Carr and saying and all those guys.

Um, and so, the opportunity to get a guy like that a year early and maybe do it for a second-round pick and get him in your building and get him working with you, with the idea that maybe there could be a Terrell Pryor .

Type of suspension, if you remember what happened in 2011, the NFL matched the NCAA six-game suspension for Terrell Pryor.

So, you know, the NFL wouldn't be used as a safe harbor for people trying to escape NCAA penalties.

Maybe there's some sort of suspension, but either way, you get him in your building a year early, you get a chance to work with him for a year, and you go into 2027 and you've got your quarterback.

It's an interesting scenario and especially for teams like the Jets, the Cardinals, the Dolphins, the Browns, that really kept their powder dry when it comes to the quarterback position.

You look at some of those teams did pick quarterbacks in the draft, you know, you've got, I mean, you got Talent Green going to Cleveland, you've got, uh, you've got Kate Klubnick going to the Jets, you've got Carson Beck going to the Cardinals.

You know, I just think from a big picture perspective here, if you're one of those teams, it might make sense to throw a 2-round pick at Brendan Soarsby, get him in your building and see what happens.

Appreciate you guys coming out.

As always, you can leave your comments down below here on the YouTube page.

That's, uh, and you get to me on my social media as well, as always, at Albert Breer on Twitter, at Albert Arbreer on Facebook, at Albert_Breer on Instagram.

Appreciate you guys coming out.

We will see you tomorrow with a mailbag edition of the Breer Report.