Fernando Mendoza likely joining rare club for No. 1 overall picks
Fernando Mendoza is on track to begin his NFL career behind Kirk Cousins. Just how rare is it for a No. 1 overall pick to open the season as a backup?
Sports Seriously
Fernando Mendoza was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, but the expectation is he will begin his career as the backup to veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins.
As a result, the Las Vegas Raiders’ preseason Week 3 game against the San Francisco 49ers represented a key opportunity for Mendoza to get playing time before the start of the 2026 NFL season.
Raiders coach Klint Kubiak opted to play Cousins the first two drives of the Thursday, Aug. 27, preseason clash. But after that, Mendoza played until the start of the fourth quarter, when Aidan O’Connell entered.
After a strong preseason debut and a less impressive second effort, Mendoza’s outing in the Raiders’ preseason finale showed off even more of his limitations at this early stage of his career. If nothing else, it showcased why Las Vegas was wise to bring in a veteran in Cousins to help bridge the gap.
How did Mendoza perform in his all-important final preseason game? Here’s a full breakdown of his outing, as well as a grade for it.
Fernando Mendoza grade for Raiders vs. 49ers preseason game
Mendoza didn’t have much to write home about in his final preseason outing.
Throughout two quarters – and a bit of a third – the rookie quarterback leaned heavily on checkdown passes, overthrew his targets multiple times, was late on some throws, took a couple of sacks and threw an interception. In other words, Mendoza looked the part of a rookie quarterback still adjusting to NFL game speed.
At times, the Raiders’ lack of good depth on their offensive line made it hard to evaluate Mendoza. Was he taking sacks and facing pressure because he couldn’t get the ball out fast, or because the line was letting guys go unblocked? Sometimes the answer was the former, sometimes the latter, occasionally both.
The No. 1 overall pick was late on his throws on multiple occasions, which led to some of the overthrows and incompletions. But there were plenty of blown blocking assignments from the line in front of him as well.
After Mendoza’s interception, which he threw on his second snap of the game, it also seemed like he lost a bit of confidence in his ability to push the ball. There appeared to be an extra emphasis on progressing through his reads, and he ended up throwing to his final, checkdown option often – but in the third quarter especially. That meant fewer intermediate and deep targets as the game progressed; Mendoza hesitated to pull the trigger on his earlier reads in his progression. By the end of the night, the most net yards the Raiders got on a single Mendoza-led play was a 19-yard pass interference call that was questionable at best.
A full analysis won’t be possible until we see some of the all-22 film from the matchup against the 49ers. Perhaps the 49ers were actually just really good in coverage and checkdowns were really the only available option.
For now, the main takeaway from Mendoza’s showing in the Raiders’ preseason finale is that he still has a ways to go before he’s ready to swipe the starting job from Cousins.
Fernando Mendoza grade vs. 49ers: C-
Fernando Mendoza stats vs. 49ers
- Completions/Attempts (%): 7-for-14 (50%)
- Passing yards: 57
- Passing touchdowns: 0
- Interceptions: 1
- Passer rating: 31.0
- Rushing yards: 9 (on two attempts)
- Sacks: 2 (20 yards lost)