The Las Vegas Raiders used the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft on Fernando Mendoza. That was back in April. The decision wasn’t hard to figure out.
Mendoza tore through college football last season under Curt Cignetti at Indiana. He won a national championship and basically became the best player in the sport. Now he’s working with Klint Kubiak, the Raiders’ offensive coordinator. And according to Mendoza, the transition might be smoother than people expect.
He sat down with Maxx Crosby on The Rush podcast recently and made a direct comparison between his two coaches. It wasn’t about X’s and O’s. It was more philosophical than that.
“One thing that I think coach Cignetti and coach Kubiak both preach in a way, is that everyone’s equal,” Mendoza told Crosby. “And how I see that as a quarterback is killing the ego. Making sure that no matter what success I had at Indiana or what future success or whatever expectation, there’s no ego there. The only motivation is getting better.”
That kind of attitude matters when you’re a rookie QB walking into a team that just went 3-14. The Raiders had a rough 2025 season. Three different quarterbacks — Geno Smith, Kenny Pickett, and Aidan O’Connell — all took snaps. None of them made the offense work consistently.
So Vegas cleaned house in the quarterback room this spring. Mendoza is the big name, the guy with the draft pedigree and the college hardware. But he’s not the only new face. Kirk Cousins signed with the Raiders after his messy exit from Atlanta. That gives the team a veteran presence who’s seen pretty much everything in this league.
What makes this interesting is how Mendoza seems wired. He’s not coming in like some rookies do, acting like the college star who has all the answers. He’s talking about killing the ego. He’s talking about being one of 53 guys. That’s exactly the kind of thing Kubiak wants to hear from his franchise quarterback.
Cignetti built Indiana into a powerhouse by having everyone buy into the same system. No special treatment. No diva stuff. Kubiak is trying to build that same culture in Las Vegas. If Mendoza can carry that mindset from college to the pros, the Raiders might actually have something real here.
The future is bright on paper. But paper doesn’t win games. We’ll see if Kubiak can unlock the full potential of a national championship-winning quarterback. If he does, the rest of the AFC better watch out.
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