The Raiders believe they have found a franchise quarterback in Fernando Mendoza and after a few weeks with the team, Mendoza has already made a unique impression on the coaching staff.
First-year coordinator Andrew Janocko came to the Raiders with Klint Kubiak, and it sounds like Janocko is already being stretched by his rookie quarterback.
“He’s asking questions that you might not have thought about in a couple of years,” Janocko told Paul Gutierrez with the team website. “It also makes you evaluate everything. ‘I know we’ve had some success doing it one way, but we could do it another way and be even better.’”
“He’s somebody that wants to know the whys of everything, the story behind everything. [Not just] what we’re calling, but why are we calling it? He’s really just a sponge that wants to know everything. So it’s a lot of fun working with a quarterback like that because he’s coming in as a blank slate in this offense… never been in this offense before… and just asking a ton of questions.”
It doesn’t necessarily come as a surprise that Mendoza is already stretching his coaches, but for Raider fans who remember the last no. 1 pick to go to the Raiders, it’s especially satisfying to see Mendoza ahead of the curve so quickly.
For those who never knew and others who re-programmed their minds not to remember, the 2007 coaching staff in Oakland once sent Jamarcus Russell home with a game-plan DVD loaded with plays and concepts to study. They suspected that Russell was not doing his homework, so the coaching staff gave him a blank DVD one day. When the former no. 1 pick returned to practice, he reportedly said the contents of the DVD looked good to him.
The Russell story is one that has been confirmed by more than just a few coaches and players that were with the team nearly two decades ago.
Mendoza isn’t expected to start for the Raiders right away, but the more he makes an impression on the coaching staff, it’s going to be difficult to keep him on the sideline in the first half of the season, particularly if Kirk Cousins doesn’t get off to an exciting start.
x: @raidersbeat
JaMarcus was unique. Uh…nope. Todd Marijuana-vitch was a bust. But hey! We think since AL Davis made bad choices at drafting QBs they will all be bad. Al’s gone. I think the Autumn Wind may be sailing with a good wind in her sails.