{"id":739808,"date":"2026-06-16T08:57:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T08:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/739808\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T08:57:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T08:57:40","slug":"raiders-insider-shares-rough-story-an-nfl-exec-told-him-about-fernando-mendoza-prior-to-the-25-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/739808\/","title":{"rendered":"Raiders Insider Shares Rough Story an NFL Exec Told Him about Fernando Mendoza Prior to the ’25 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fernando<\/a><\/p>\n

Fernando Mendoza is one of the best quarterback prospects to enter the draft in years, but the expectation in Las Vegas is that the Raiders will ease him into action and potentially wait until the second half of the season to put him on the field. <\/p>\n

According to reports, Mendoza had a few difficult stretches during OTAs, but anyone who watched the Heisman winner handle adversity over the course of his college career, knows Mendoza will stick to his process and learn from mistakes. <\/p>\n

Last week, long-time Raiders beat writer Vinny Bonsignore talked about Mendoza\u2019s rise from being a relative unknown and shared a story an NFL executive told him this year. <\/p>\n

According to Bonsignore, he asked the executive if anyone could have seen Mendoza\u2019s meteoric rise coming.<\/p>\n

\"Raiders<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cGoing into the 2025 season\u2026 could you have seen, based on what you knew of him, going into last year, that [Mendoza] would be that guy?\u201d Bonsingore said he asked the executive.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he said, it\u2019s really interesting, because the answer was \u2018No.\u2019 And he went so far as to say [he] went and saw him in the spring, and it was rough. In fact, his brother outplayed him. Alberto Mendoza outplayed [Fernando] in the practices that this guy had seen and in the spring game. What ultimately happened was he just kept getting better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n

No doubt, there will be a learning curve for Mendoza at the NFL level (though he isn\u2019t going to be outplayed by his younger brother this time around), but the Raiders are committed to giving him time to develop behind Kirk Cousins. <\/p>\n

For his part, Mendoza seems committed to be patient with himself, too. <\/p>\n

Mendoza commented last week on the learning process he\u2019s going through, and his perspective sounded like a seasoned veteran.<\/p>\n

\"Raiders<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s always a transition, especially from the college level to the NFL level,\u201d Mendoza told members of the media at OTAs..<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s having those positive stressors, and that growing period, There are going to be some growing pains,\u201d Mendoza continued. \u201cLuckily, I feel confident that I\u2019m able to see the field well. My growing pains are coming from, \u2018Hey, I\u2019ve got to time up my footwork a little bit with the routes,\u2019 and intricacies here and there. I\u2019m really working hard with the coaching staff, who are pushing me, and have done a phenomenal job of relaying and communicating the information needed. It\u2019s up to me take full advantage of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve been growing every day, from the first day of OTAs, then today at minicamp. I feel like I\u2019m leaps and bounds ahead of where I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

x: @raidersbeat<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fernando Mendoza is one of the best quarterback prospects to enter the draft in years, but the expectation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":739809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-739808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}