Las Vegas Raiders training camp opened this week, and all eyes went straight to the guy they took with the first overall pick in the 2026 draft. Fernando Mendoza, the Heisman winner who led Indiana to a national championship last year, hit the field with a quieter assignment than some might have expected.
He worked with the second team.
That wasn’t a surprise to anyone who followed the Raiders’ offseason. Kirk Cousins signed in free agency and will start Week 1. But how Mendoza handled those second-team reps matters a lot for what comes next.
Raiders insider Ryan McFadden of ESPN said Mendoza looked comfortable under center. Good command. The rookie wasn’t rattled by the speed of an NFL practice. He was calling out protections, making reads, getting the ball out on time.
Andrew Janocko, the Raiders offensive coordinator, has watched Mendoza grow since the spring practice window. He told reporters the kid is processing things in real time now. He can articulate what he’s seeing. That might sound small, but for a rookie quarterback, it’s the difference between running a play and running an offense.
Janocko also mentioned Mendoza has been taking what gets taught in meeting rooms and putting it straight onto the practice field. That’s not always a given. Some rookies freeze up when the speed picks up. Mendoza apparently just adapts.
His coachability was a big selling point coming out of Indiana, where he won both the Heisman and the national title in the same season. The guy was already running a pro-style college offense that had defenses guessing. The leap to the NFL is still a leap, but the early signs are that he’s treating it like a stepping stone, not a mountain.
The Raiders are not expected to be good this year. Most projections have them somewhere near the bottom of the AFC. But nobody in that building cares about wins and losses in July. The priority is getting Mendoza ready to take over. Cousins is a bridge. A good bridge, sure. But a bridge.
At some point during the coming season, the plan is for Mendoza to start. The question is not if. It’s when. And based on Day 1 of training camp, that answer might come sooner than a lot of people think.
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