Will Fernando Mendoza live up to the hype of being the first player taken in the draft?
The last time the Raiders had the no. 1 pick in the draft, it didn’t work out well, but ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit explained on Tuesday why Mendoza is going to be different.
“He’s going to beat you with his mind. There aren’t a whole lot of guys that know the game and understand the game to be able to see pre-snap movement in the NFL [and] the complexities [of defenses,” Herbstreit said on the Pat McAfee Show.
“Now he may need some time,” Herbstreit continued. “Troy Aikman, Peyton Manning, everybody needs time to adjust to the speed of the game. But he is going to be a game manager, he’s going to be a distributor, and his X factor is he moves better than a lot of people want to give him credit.”
With Kirk Cousins in the building, Herbstreit said he doesn’t think Mendoza will be the starter week one, and that seems to be the consensus among most that are connected to the team.
For now, the Raiders plan is to ease Mendoza into his NFL career and figure out what they have on offense before throwing a rookie quarterback into the mix.
In other news around Mendoza, Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban said last week that his support is what pushed the University of Indiana over the top in their efforts to add Mendoza a year ago.
“[Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson] was like, we’ve got this quarterback that we really, really like that we think would be great in [coach Curt Cignetti’s] system, we just need a little bit more,” Cuban told Front Office Sports. “I’m like, ‘How much is a little bit?’ And so he told me, and I’m like, ‘OK, you know, we’re on a roll, I’ll put up the money to get this quarterback.’”
“I knew [Fernando’s brother Alberto], who was already on the team, was a (Miami) Heat fan and he would sit behind the Miami bench, and when I would come to go to Mavs-Heat games, he was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m going to IU and da da da,’” Cuban continued. “So we met. And so I’m like, OK, I’ll put up the money, and we can go get Fernando. And the rest is history.”
x: @raidersbeat