Fernando Mendoza didn’t have his best performance against the Houston Texans on Thursday, but with head coach Klint Kubiak remaining non-committal on his starting quarterback going into the regular season, there a chance Mendoza could be the Raiders starting quarterback against the Miami Dolphins in week 1.
NBC Sports host Mike Florio talked about the Raiders quarterback situation on Friday, and he doesn’t believe Kubiak would make a statement like the one he made if Kirk Cousins has a firm grip on the starting job.
Specifically, Kubiak said after Thursday’s game that he didn’t think it would benefit his starting quarterback to know the job was secured, and Florio believes the Raiders are back tracking on the stance they have taken on Cousins.
These were Florio’s thoughts on PFT Live on Friday…
“Anytime I hear a comment like that about your supposed starting quarterback, I ask myself, what would we say if Andy Reed said that? What would we say if Joe Brady said that? What would we say if Jesse Minter said that?
So it’s obvious that we’ve gone from ‘Kirk Cousins is the starter and Fernando Mendoza is going to get a sprinkling of first team reps’ to ‘It’s Kirk Cousins’ job to lose’ to ‘Well, we still got a week to figure it out.’ It’s moving that way and I don’t know whether this was all driven by limited partner and absentee landlord Tom Brady to sit Mendoza… whether or not they’re just trying to coax him to make the decision that they’re going to go with Mendoza.
You want to build some confidence in the player. You want to make him feel like he’s achieved something. You don’t want people to think he’s had anything handed to him. He’s come out and he’s proven it. Whatever the motivation, we’ve seen this before… we saw it with Ryan Tannehill 14 years ago. He came in number three on the depth chart. And I remember thinking, well, I mean, they don’t have anybody. He’s going to be the starter.
You make him number three on the depth chart. He’s going to be number two and he’s going to be number one. We know what’s going to happen, and I feel like the same thing is going to happen with the Raiders. We still have more time and by the time we get to preparation for the game at Miami… I’m willing to owe you possibly three dinners on Fernando Mendoza being the week one starter.”
Raiders still expected to start Cousins week 1
As much as Mendoza has shown in two preseason games, Cousins is still ahead of him in terms of running Kubiak’s offense. That has been evident based on reports from training camp and the general message coming from the building.
Cousins has played one possession in preseason, and he completed five of six passes on the drive for 50 yards and a touchdown.
The Raiders can turn to Mendoza at any point in the season, and if the coaching staff believes the best long-term plan for Mendoza is to spend more time on the sideline, that’s the direction they need to go.
Of course, Florio has a theory on who really wants Mendoza on the bench to start the season (Tom Brady), but that’s a theory that has already been addressed.
x: @raidersbeat
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