The Raiders Will Be Careful With Their Future Star QB

Let's move on to Fernandomania.

Um, I chronicled this for SI.

com.

You can read, uh, my breakdown of it.

Interesting stat here.

Fernando Mendoza played 10 snaps under center in the first half.

How many did he play under center at Indiana?

Uh, 12, 5.

He played double, so I'm including penalties in this, um, when I, uh, so 97% of his snaps at Indiana were from the shotgun, um, and it's an interesting, you can go back and.

Listen to our pod, uh, with Scott Turner, the former, uh, uh, offensive coordinator of the Raiders, son of Norv, and he was talking a lot about the, um, under center transition, which he said I could teach a good quarterback to do in 25 minutes.

Clearly, Fernando Mendoza is a good quarterback because That I, to me, there's the overarching stuff like, oh, he threw, you know , threw a touchdown, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The overarching takeaway for me is that, well, two things.

One, the Raiders were running some real plays.

This was not your vanilla, um, Gabby's Dollhouse version of the offense, right?

They, they were doing some actual stuff and The reason I know that is because I was texting with someone who has helped install this offense before, during the game, you know, I'm like, hey, is this, you know, is this, and the, the quote, the quote I got back on text was, yeah, this stuff ain't day one install.

OK.

And so, uh, they were running some real plays, um, a lot of two back , which is exciting, another prediction of mine that has come true.

Um, but, Fernando Mendoza looks like a great fit in a Kubiak Shanahan offense.

Like it just, it looks like it suits him.

And I think that that's the big takeaway from this weekend.

It's like, we're wondering how he was gonna fit into an offense that looks like this, how does his athleticism, a lot of play action, um, a lot of asking you to throw to the middle of the field, which he did really well.

So, I think if you're the Raiders, you leave this weekend thinking like Mendoza is still very much pushing.

To start opening day.

And, you know, I know we've heard everything about Cousins gonna play most of the year, most of the year.

I don't know, man.

And he's got to do it against someone else that isn't the Cardinals, but, uh, uh, you know.

Here's why I think he's a good fit.

That's a, as you know, Connor, such a detailed or detail-oriented offense, and he is a detail-oriented kid, you know, like that offense.

It isn't about throwing a zillion things at you scheme-wise.

It's being, it's about being very precise in every single way, right?

To make every single thing look like something else, which allows everybody who's playing within that offense to play a little faster.

And this is a hyper detail-oriented kid, right?

And I've got, I've got one story that'll blow your mind that I can't share yet.

And I hope I'm gonna be able to share about, you know, what he did in the pre-draft process.

Like, he is such a conscientious kid.

And so, you know, I think what they're focused on now, you know, what Clint and Andrew Goco and Mike McCoy and all the guys who are working with him out there are really focused on is, like, let's make sure.

We have all the detail nailed down with him.

So what does that mean?

That means learning to play under center, which obviously is an ongoing process right now.

It means the footwork, and the footwork is the most important thing for them, right?

Like they are, and, and you know this, Connor, they are militant about that part with the quarterback, right?

And the timing, timing up your eyes with your feet and like the ball comes out at a certain, and the receivers are a certain depth , and so like when my foot hits the ground here, this receiver is there, and when I, when, you know, when I When I, when I, when I, when I look, when I go to my secondary, my feet are here, um, you know, with everything's based on hitching, like the hitch timing and all of that, like, it's just, and this kid, like he is so dialed in on details.

And so, like, I think this is a really good marriage of coach and quarterback, of system and quarterback.

So, I don't doubt what you're saying, OK?

Like I don't doubt what you're saying that he's gonna be ahead of schedule and he's gonna be pushing to play.

The one thing I was told emphatically when I was there, and I do think they're gonna be disciplined about this, is it's not just when he's ready to run the offense, it's when the team is ready to support him, and is the team in a position to not get him killed and not undo some of the teaching because now all of a sudden he's getting hit more than he should be getting hit, and now his timing is off and now he's throwing off his footwork and now the detail that we worked on, we've got to reteach it because You know, like the, and that's, and that's something I think like Clint Kubiak and Androgen, again, all those guys are gonna be very, very conscientious of.

So what does that mean?

Well, that means.

What does, so you have Colton Miller and Tyler Linderbaum, right?

What is like Jackson Powers Johnson look like?

What does DJ Glaze look like?

Like those are important pieces there, right?

What does the receiver group look like?

Have you been able to develop somebody, you know?

And I, I think one name that everyone needs to pay attention to, and it's a name I brought up in my column a couple of weeks ago, is Malik Benson, the rookie out of Oregon, who they think, they think they've got one there, right?

But they have to have, they have to have things like that happen.

And so, to me, this is not so much about Fernando Mendoza being ready because I think he's gonna get there.

And this is a guy who did play a lot in college, right?

Like he has a lot of reps under his belt.

I think more than just that, this is, do we have the team around him that's gonna allow for him to have some success early on, gain some confidence, which in turn will reinforce what we're teaching him.

And again, like, I put that chart out every year, Connor, like that shows that teams don't wait.

You know what I mean?

Like you draft a quarterback high in the 1st round, you're gonna wind up throwing him out there at some point.

But, you know, I do think the Raiders are gonna be disciplined about, you know, we need to be careful about when we put him out there and, and, and the team needs to be ready to support him the same way he needs to be ready to lead the team.

And let's be fair to Kirk Cousins, who looked good and led a touchdown drive on his only uh action of the night.

And I, I, I wanna, I, I think we should throw that in there.

He looked so much more comfortable.

From a movement perspective than he did in Atlanta.

And we could see that throughout training camp, but I think seeing it in-game and within the harmony of a play, and, you know, this is why I thought the Raiders were actually kind of coming out guns blazing here because A lot of motion on that drive, you know, a lot of movement on Cousins' part too, you know, it wasn't just necessarily, you know, all the jet motion and, and motioning to run out of the two back stuff, it was, let's see Kirk Cousins on the move a little bit too, and he looked healthy, like, really healthy for the first time in, in like 2 years.

And I, I think that I mean, I was kind of banging the drum on this all preseason, like, if you're the Steelers, like, why, why not do that?

Um, if you're the Dolphins, but maybe the Dolphins aren't necessarily super interested in that, if you're the Cardinals, why wouldn't you do that?

But uh, I, I, I, I thought he looked really, really good, and I think good enough that If Mendoza plays well next week, it's not like fans are beating down the door of, of your stadium, and I think that they understand it, uh, but, well, that's a huge key, you know, that's a huge key is like, you don't, like the players know, it's like the same thing I said, you know, with the Falcons situation, like the players know what the best option is, and You know, they don't care about your three-year plan.

So that's the other thing you're sort of battling is if the veteran quarterback came out and looked like the wheels were coming off and thankfully that doesn't seem like it's the case with Kirk.

I, um, I, I thought he, you know, so there's the good, his ball placement is unbelievable, Fernando Mendoza.

Um, there was the touchdown throw to Besh where really, it's the only place that you can throw it.

It's like that low and away throw.

It's a heady play because you don't want anything up in the air, down at the red zone, and so I thought that was a great throw.

There were a couple more, like a back-shoulder uh ball that ended up getting dropped or broken up or whatever it was, but it's right on the money.

There was only one throw, maybe 2, if I can, if I'm looking back at my notes here, that he kind of led a receiver into getting hit by another defender, which is something that guys don't necessarily appreciate.

I think the one, he just didn't see the guy, uh, yeah, a little hospital ball situation.

The one, I think he literally just didn't see the guy, um, on the first drive, and then the other one, by then, it was the 3rd quarter, you're Playing with backups and you can't really properly evaluate that.

But I thought he threw in the middle of the field really well, looked off, um, defenders, you know, to, to work guys open, which I thought was great.

The one thing that had me like pounding the table and screaming like, no, stop was Just, you know, he, he broke the pocket and like bore his full chest to a defender and got whacked, you know, and you're just like, stop, you know, this is, this is the preseason, uh, we don't need Braveheart here, uh, necessarily.

So, there was that, but overall, I, I, I thought he lived up to the hype.

I think he's gonna be such a good system quarterback, especially with that grouping.

Um, One other thing I wanted to note, and then I do want to talk about Jeremiah Love for a second before we get to Ty Simpson, but um, I thought it was really, really interesting how uh Kubiak was using Mike McCoy, and there were a couple of instances, and I, what's that?

I don't, I don't think I caught this, so go ahead.

So, so this was later in the game, and it was coming out of the half, and there were different kind of procedural things going on.

And Kubiak and Mike McCoy, for you guys who don't know, former NFL head coach , uh, longtime, very respected offensive mind, but he's a veteran member of this Raiders staff now.

And you basically saw Kubiak being like, you get over there and you get the procedural stuff done, you know, like, talking to the referees out of the half, figuring out what's going on with the ball.

I, I'm scripting plays here, you know, like, I'm, I'm doing my thing here.

I'm getting the stuff ready for Mendoza, and whether or not it's gonna You know, whether or not you wanna be the alpha on game day or not, practicing this stuff and at least working through it in your head, I think is so valuable because if you could take some of the game management stuff, more of the game management stuff off your plate, if you're Kubiak, and allow yourself to just do what you do really well, I mean, I think this team can take extra, extra steps a little bit sooner than, than scheduled.

It's actually, it's actually interesting you say that cause I, I dug up, this was something I did 9 years ago, and you remember, Connor, I did that thing where I went with um Norv Turner.

Yes, from camp to camp, and it was like, Norv thought he was done, he wasn't quite done yet.

He would wind up going back and coaching the Panthers after this, but he had been fired by the Vikings after the 16th season, and he and I have known each other a long time, and he said , like, hey, it'd be cool if, like, I could come on your camp trip.

I was like, yeah, that'd be cool.

Um, so he came with me and we went to Canton to see Jerry and, and LT get in, LaDainian Tomlinson, um, get into the Hall of Fame.

Um, we went to Michigan where his son was coaching under Jim Harbaugh.

Um, and then we went out west and we went to Cowboys camp, so we get to see Jerry and Jason Garrett, you know, who he coached, who was the head coach at the time, and we went to a Chargers Vikings, uh, or Chargers-Saints during practice.

You can see Philip Rivers and Adrian Peterson was there who he had had in Minnesota.

And then we went to the Rams and he didn't have like a natural connection to the Rams, and I had said to McVeigh before that, I just wanna put you in a room with, with Norv.

You can do whatever you want with the hour, right?

And like you can do whatever whatever you wanna do with it, like, I just wanna be a fly on the wall.

Hopefully you put some restrictions on that because you guys, yeah, you guys talk and um we had a camera in there, we had a camera in there and um.

Sean spent the entire hour talking to Nor about juggling being a head coach and a play caller because he had not coached a game.

He had not, he had not been a head coach for a single game yet, and it was fascinating to see that was how he chose to use that hour, you know what I mean?

And it's something that's very real that we don't think about.

It's like, oh yeah, of course, Clint Kubiak is gonna call the plays.

That's what he's really good at.

But it's not that simple, you know, so, so something like what you just said shows a self-awareness about it, which is what I saw that day in that room with McVeigh.

The, the, because I think once you ascend to that chair, it's like, oh, well, I can do everything.

And there's, I've talked to coaches about this, the desire to want to do everything.

And the moment that you become a head coach, nobody comes to you and says, hey, would you think about just letting somebody else do the game management stuff because they're afraid of you, because you're in charge.

And so, if you're For peeling that off and delegating that, which, again, I'm not saying he is.

I think there was just a couple of moments early in that second half where you saw Kubiak being like, hey, you go over there and have that conversation with that ref cause I gotta go do this stuff over here.

And I thought that was smart because you're not just allowing your head to spin and you're not just standing there, you know, in a, in your own tornado, and I thought, I thought he did a really good job in particular.