The Las Vegas Raiders and rookie quarterback Fernando Mendoza have been at the center of a growing debate this offseason.

Mendoza, the No. 1 overall selection in the 2026 NFL Draft, arrived in Las Vegas after a historic career that included a 16-0 season at Indiana, a national championship, and a Heisman Trophy. New head coach Klint Kubiak inherited a franchise desperate for stability at quarterback, and the 6-4, 236-pound passer was supposed to be the answer.

But a recent report from NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport has introduced a wrinkle that doesn’t sit well when you examine the full picture.

From The Insiders on @NFLNetwork: Looking at the #Raiders QB situation and what the best-case scenario is. pic.twitter.com/fuNujx698A

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) July 17, 2026

According to Rapoport, the Raiders intend to bring Mendoza along slowly. Rapoport went as far as to suggest that veteran Kirk Cousins could start the entire 2026 season as a bridge quarterback, though he did leave the door open for things to change. For anybody who has seen this story play out before, you know that when you’re a No. 1 pick, there will be a ton of push from the public and internally for the team to see what you can bring to the table.

The evidence against sitting rookie quarterbacks

To say that it always makes sense to let young quarterbacks develop behind the scenes is too broad a statement. In reality, letting players play early can be extremely beneficial.

Jeremy Fowler recently published his quarterback rankings, and of the 20 quarterbacks mentioned across the top 10, honorable mentions, and others receiving votes, 15 out of 20 started the majority of their rookie seasons. Obviously, when the Raiders drafted Mendoza with the top pick, they envisioned him being a part of this list someday, or else something went terribly wrong.

That top 10 from Fowler’s sources included Josh Allen (Buffalo Bills), Patrick Mahomes (Kansas City Chiefs), Matthew Stafford (Los Angeles Rams), Joe Burrow (Cincinnati Bengals), Lamar Jackson (Baltimore Ravens), Dak Prescott (Dallas Cowboys), Justin Herbert (Los Angeles Chargers), Drake Maye (New England Patriots), Jared Goff (Detroit Lions), and Caleb Williams (Chicago Bears).

The next group featured Sam Darnold (Seattle Seahawks), Jayden Daniels (Washington Commanders), Jordan Love (Green Bay Packers), Brock Purdy (San Francisco 49ers), Baker Mayfield (Tampa Bay Buccaneers), Trevor Lawrence (Jacksonville Jaguars), Jalen Hurts (Philadelphia Eagles), Bo Nix (Denver Broncos), Daniel Jones (Indianapolis Colts, and C.J. Stroud (Houston Texans).

Only one of those 20 did not start a single game as a rookie: Jordan Love. Mahomes started only the final game of his rookie season, taking over for Alex Smith. Lamar Jackson sat behind Joe Flacco for the majority of his first year before eventually taking over down the stretch. Hurts started four games during his rookie campaign, and Purdy started five games while playing in nine for the San Francisco 49ers.

That is the complete list of quarterbacks from the top 20 where you could say there was some level of patience. For the vast majority, playing early was the objective, playing early was the decision, and you could argue it paid off for them.

The last time a No. 1 overall selection at quarterback didn’t play the majority of his rookie season was Eli Manning back in the 2004 NFL Draft. Manning only started seven games that season after taking over for Kurt Warner. This ideology just isn’t something we have seen over the last 20-plus years.

Why Mendoza is a different case than the typical “be patient” argument

There are absolutely situations where letting a player percolate in the system, get comfortable, and acclimate appropriately is the smart move. But for Mendoza, I don’t think it makes any sense.

The Raiders did not draft Mendoza because he was a high-upside project who needed a long developmental track. This was a 35-game starter between his time at Cal and Indiana. The big selling point was the fact that he has been through every trial and tribulation. He was a redshirt freshman in 2023 who had to figure it out on the fly in a difficult situation at Cal. In 2024, he made a Cal team that wasn’t overly talented a lot more competitive. Then he transferred to Indiana, found a better situation, and learned how to win.

He has been on the winning end and the losing end. He has gone through the fire, picked himself up, and been in every situation you would want a young quarterback to fight his way out of. That experience is precisely why he was billed as a high-floor player.

With all of that experience and the fact that questions about his ceiling already exist, I don’t understand the transitional period of him potentially not playing much as a rookie. This is a player who should be as well equipped as any quarterback over the last couple of years to come in and showcase that he can make things serviceable from day one.

The bigger picture in Las Vegas

Yes, the Raiders are not in a great situation. They need to continue building the roster, and a new coaching staff still needs time to breathe and develop. But Mendoza will be 23 in October. He has ample experience and was drafted specifically because of the floor he established across three college seasons.

Per A to Z Sports‘ Easton Freeze, a Titans beat reporter for the site, there is believed to be actual legitimacy to the claim that the organization wants to exercise patience with Mendoza. Here is what Freeze said:

“I can confirm that the Raiders coaching staff is, in fact, planning on playing quarterback Kirk Cousins for as much of this season as they can get away with,” Freeze said. “Keeping Mendoza in redshirt mode is the hope, but hope is the operative word here. It’s ultimately a pretty interesting lens through which to view this team and the power structure within, because the unique thing about the Raiders that makes them actually liable to follow through with this plan is the fact that Tom Brady is a part of the ownership group.

“His ownership stake is not such that he has technical legal authority over these things, but since he came on board with the Raiders, it seems there’s been no more influential figure in the organization than Thomas Edward Patrick Brady. Since leaving the NFL, Brady has been very vocal in sports media as it pertains to his opinion on quarterbacks in the modern era not being allowed to sit and develop.

“In an August 2024 interview with Stephen A. Smith, Brady said, ‘I think it’s just a tragedy that we’re forcing these rookies to play early, but the reality is the only reason why we are is that we’ve dumbed the game down, which has allowed them to play.’ He also added, ‘I don’t believe the quarterback position is mentally as developed as it was when I entered the league.’ That’s, of course, the entire reason for wanting to sit Mendoza in a redshirt early, but mental development on the sideline is typically trumped by the pressure to perform now in our microwave society 2026 NFL ecosystem.

“The last bit of context I have to contribute here is that while I know the Raiders coaching staff is planning on rocking with Kirk Cousins as long as they can, they’re not blind to the way this works. There’s a healthy skepticism from those intending on playing Cousins that it will last as long as they like it to at this stage in the year. If you’ve been around the league any amount of time, you know just how quickly that switch can flip when you go from off-season hopes and dreams to regular season realities.“

If that is the case and Las Vegas follows through with keeping him on the bench for much of 2026, it feels like a flawed process. It doesn’t fit structurally with why you valued a player like Fernando Mendoza at No. 1 overall. Whether Brady likes it or not, the recent sample size has shown that playing early is actually more beneficial than not for young quarterbacks.

It is the job of the organization to then be patient as they work through the bumps in the road. If Mendoza doesn’t come out on the other side, then he probably was never destined to be that guy.