Raiders’ QB1 Decision Might Have Little to do with Fernando Mendoza, ESPN Insider Says

The Raiders are expected to keep Fernando Mendoza on the sideline for the start the 2026 season, and the question every Raider fan seems to have right now is… for how long?

ESPN’s Adam Schefter said last month it could be December before Mendoza starts a game, and one of Schefter’s colleagues explained why in a column this week.

“Because he was the No. 1 pick, everyone is asking when the Raiders will decide it’s OK to put Mendoza into a game. The answer might not rest with him or Cousins; it might come down to how quickly the rest of the roster comes together,” ESPN insider Dan Graziano wrote on Tuesday.

“Teams say this all the time, but it hardly ever works. It seems like every year at least one team insists it won’t start its first-round quarterback but ends up having to because of a poor record. Jaxson Dart with the Giants is just the most recent example.”

Raiders focused on more than just Mendoza’s development…

According to Graziano, one of the reasons the Raiders want to be patient with Mendoza has nothing to do with the no. 1 pick at all.

“The Raiders do not have a strong roster. They have significant issues to address with their wide receiver corps, offensive line and several positions on defense. They don’t want to play Mendoza yet not because they don’t think he’s ready, but because they don’t think they’re ready for him,” Graziano continued.

“They want the group around Mendoza to put him in the best possible position to succeed, and they recognize they might need at least one more offseason in order to produce that. If they stay true to their word, even if Cousins were to get injured early in the season, they’d probably rather play Aidan O’Connell over Mendoza. Again, this approach happens all the time and rarely works out the way the team foresees. But this Raiders staff believes it has some runway to build things out the right way, and part of that plan is to wait on Mendoza until the team can support him better than it can right now.”

There has been a little momentum around the idea the Raiders might keep three quarterbacks this year, and Graziano’s comments on Aidan O’Connell are a hint the Raiders could, in fact, go into the season with three quarterbacks on the roster.

Insider says Mendoza DOES have a chance to start week 1…

Not many are more connected to the Raiders than the California Post’s Vinny Bonsignore, and Bonsignore said last week there are people in the Raiders’ building who believe Mendoza could be the starting quarterback out of the gate.

In fact, he said as much on the team’s flagship radio station.

“I think that there’s people in that building who fully expect Fernando to put himself right in the running to start day one. Flat out, I don’t think there won’t be any hesitation to start him if that is the case and there’s people in the building [that] kind of fully expect that to be the case,” Bonsignore said on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate.

“So I’m not ruling out rule week one and… I think it would almost be a waste not to play him this year, because I’m looking at 2027 as the year where things really in a powerful way for the Raiders, they are really announcing themselves. So why would you wait until 2027 or late in this season and [to] not take full advantage of this year as a development year for Fernando Mendoza on the football field, not behind the scenes watching Kurt Cousins?”

“I think that would be my preference and I think that there are people in the building that are going to be open minded about, okay, if he’s ready to go out there and acquit himself and he’s not going to get destroyed by the offensive line and we feel good about that part of it, I feel like they’ll make that decision. Now we’ll have to wait and see because anything can happen in training camp one way or the other, but they are open minded about getting him on the field as quickly as possible.”

x: @raidersbeat