Do the Raiders have a legitimate quarterback competition going into their final preseason game on Thursday?
Every indication has been that Kirk Cousins in the track to start in the season opener, but Klint Kubiak has passed on multiple opportunities in recent weeks to name Cousins the starter.
“We’ve got another week of playing. I don’t want anyone to be comfortable in their job,” Kubiak said after last week’s game. “It should always be that way for all positions. So let’s keep going forward.”
Based on Kubiak’s comments, there appears to be some level of uncertainty around the quarterback position, but according to Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter, there is no quarterback competition in Las Vegas.
“There is absolutely no quarterback battle,” Carpetner said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast on Wednesday.
“I have been telling you this since before camp. Anyone hyping to you that this is a battle or that there’s any real decision is click baiting. There isn’t one. It isn’t going to happen. That’s just definitive.”
Cousins played well in his only possession of the preseason, but it’s fair to wonder why he hasn’t been on the field more considering he’s only been with the team since March and it’s a new offensive scheme for the players who were around last year.
Kubiak hasn’t revealed who will play in the final preseason game on Thursday, but if Cousins is locked in as the starter, it wouldn’t be the worst idea to give him more than one preseason series before the regular season opener – especially since the season opener isn’t for another 18 days.
Florio thinks Raiders will start Mendoza week 1
He often reminds his audience that he isn’t an insider, but Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio said last week he believes Mendoza will be the Raiders’ starting quarterback when the season begins.
These were Florio’s comment on Friday on PFT Live…
“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.”
x: @raidersbeat
Get Jordan Meredith off this team and go sign Mekhi Becton to a one year prove it deal. Protecting Mendoza at all costs needs to be priority #1.