The Raiders are all but guaranteed to take Fernando Mendoza with the no. 1 pick in the draft, but ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky is not yet sold on the Indiana quarterback based on his review of Indiana’s film.
Earlier this week, Orlovsky said he had begun to review Mendoza’s single season at Indiana and said the film wasn’t what he expected. But Orlovsky didn’t expand on the tweet until later in the week.
On Friday, Orlovsky shared more about what he thought of Mendoza’s film on ESPN’s First Take.
“I’m through 8 games now, and through 8 games you see good, but there is a lot of underwhelming,” Orlovsky said about Mendoza’s play in the first half of the season.
“I think there’s a lot when you watch Mendoza’s tape through 8 games, not all the way through and I understand that his season finished strong. But there’s not a ton of big time throw, there’s a lot of clean pockets, there’s a ton of RPOs and back shoulder fades, and then there’s moments where you see [the] first read is not there, he’s spooked with his feet and he becomes a runner unnecessarily.”
“If you take away the RPOs and then those back shoulder fades, there’s just not a ton of balls over the middle of the field. [He makes] very good decisions. I think that’s his superpower. He avoids negative plays, but you’re looking at a guy and saying ‘first pick’ and I think through 8 games Ty Simpson’s tape from Alabama… I think, is significantly more impressive than Fernando Mendoza’s.”
Asked if he believes Mendoza is the clear-cut no. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft, Orlovsky said he has doubts based on the first half of the college season.
“I’m not there and that’s through half of the season or so,” Orlovsky said.
“I’m just not there. The NFL season just got done days ago. I haven’t gotten to the back 7 or 8 games or so. I am not there on the first half of the season.”
To his credit, Orlovsky explained what he didn’t like about Mendoza in the first half of the season, and it will be interesting to see how he contrasts Mendoza in the first half of the season to when the Indiana offense exploded in the second half of the season.
Another talking head, formerly with ESPN, tried to explain in January why Mendoza didn’t look worthy of the no. 1 pick and it wasn’t anything close to a football evaluation.
These were Bomani Jones’ comments on Mendoza during Indiana’s championship run…
“I got people asking me [about] Fernando Mendoza. Is he what the Raiders need and I watched Mendoza. We’ll talk a little bit more about that game, and Mendoza looks like something I’ve seen very many times, which is a very good college quarterback,” Jones said on The Right Time with Bomani Jones.
“I know what the no. 1 pick in the draft look like. That ain’t it. Even if you think Cam Ward’s not going to be that guy, you look at Cam Ward with the Titans and you’re like ‘That guy was the no. 1 pick in the draft.’ You see that.”
“Mendoza. Eww. I don’t know.”
Like every prospect, Mendoza will have doubters, but the thought in Las Vegas is that with Tom Brady in the building, the Raiders have the set of eyes they need to make the right decision on their next quarterback.
Brady had a few hiccups in his pursuit of a quarterback for the Raiders a year ago, but there’s a chance he sees a little of himself in Mendoza.
As an athlete, Mendoza doesn’t offer the athleticism that guys like Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen bring to the quarterback position, but he has shown the ability to do everything else necessary to be an elite quarterback at the NFL level.
At 6’5, Mendoza has good height and the arm strength to make NFL throws. He has shown above average pocket presence and as much as anything, he has shown the ability to excel at the quarterback position from an intellectual standpoint.
Brady has always emphasized the mental side of playing quarterback and the importance of preparation.
If he gets nothing else, Brady is going to get that from Mendoza.
During the second quarter of Indiana’s playoff game against Alabama, ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit talked about Mendoza’s preparation and the work he puts into the mental aspect of playing the quarterback position in college.
“He would tell you a big part of his success this year has been the prep. He feels like he has the answers,” Herbstreit said before the broadcast went to sideline reporter Holly Rowe.
“He’s been working with a sports psychologist all year,” Rowe added.
“And he’s really worked lately on ‘I have the answers to the puzzle. I know where the puzzle pieces need to go.’ His preparation is legendary. Before he even got to Indiana, he asked for a sheet of every player’s name and a picture of them so that by the time he got to his very first meeting and his very first practice, he had memorized every single kid. So he stepped into the building knowing his teammates, being able to call them by their first names and the preparation is legendary, just like you said.”
The hope with Mendoza would be that anything he lacks from an athletic standpoint, he could make up for with other strengths – similar to the way Brady did in the NFL For 23 seasons.
x: @raidersbeat
Who cares what that scrub thinks!
He probably doesn’t like Mendoza cause the Raiders are in position to draft him
Mendoza is a good, young prospect but to be schooled, coached, how to be a NFL quarterback. I believe that the Raiders should hire Philip Rivers, as the quarterbacks coach, to bring the best out of Mendoza. Rivers is extremely experienced and knowledgeable, in NFL terms, of how to be effective at this position.