Despite plenty of struggles since last winning the Super Bowl more than four years before Kirk Cousins was born, the Raiders have earned the first overall pick in the draft only twice: in 2007 and in 2026.
How did it go the last time? Not too good.
JaMarcus Russell didn’t start right away. It probably wouldn’t have mattered if he had. After 25 starts in three seasons, it was over for him.
Now, Fernando Mendoza enters the fray with the hope of becoming the first true year-to-year franchise quarterback the Raiders have had since Kenny Stabler. And the options for Week 1 are Mendoza and Cousins.
In late March, new coach Klint Kubiak made it clear that he’d prefer to have Mendoza “watching a mature adult go and run an offense and run the team.” But Cousins has acknowledged that the decision should be driven by merit.
“I honestly don’t want to start unless I’m the best option, and I told Klint that,” Cousins said in early April. “The best player should play. As long as that’s the case, I have no qualms about however it plays out.”
So how will it play out? Kubiak talked up Cousins during the offseason program, which could be another clue as to Kubiak’s preference. But training camp is a different beast.
When practice begins, and when both quarterbacks are getting chances to do what they do, the players will have a chance to witness their performances. To compare and to contrast them. And, ultimately, to develop an impression as to which guy provides the better option to win games.
If it’s Mendoza, it won’t be easy to bench him for Cousins. The other players (starting with Maxx Crosby) will want to win. If the players think Mendoza puts them in a better position to do that, they won’t be thrilled with a long-term plan to get more out of Mendoza later by having him do less now.
The Chiefs pulled that off with Patrick Mahomes nine years ago because the Chiefs were a perennial playoff team under Alex Smith. The Raiders are a perennial also-ran, running behind the other teams in the AFC West. If the locker room thinks Mendoza is, to use Cousins’s term, “the best player,” the locker room won’t be thrilled with the idea of keeping Fernando parked in the garage like a Ferrari, opting instead to tool around in a Fiat.
And if the 37-year-old Cousins, who had no immediate market for his services as a clear-cut QB1 elsewhere, outperforms Mendoza, what does that say about the Raiders’ decision to make Mendoza the first overall pick in the draft?
The days of the five-year plan in the NFL ended closer to five decades than five years ago. Life in the NFL happens one season at a time. Veteran players don’t want a year in which players less than the best available at all positions aren’t playing.
Put simply, the Raiders haven’t been good enough to put the better player on the bench. If that’s Mendoza, he needs to play. If it’s not Mendoza, maybe they should have picked a better player when they returned to the JaMarcus Russell spot for the first time in 19 years.
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