{"id":734284,"date":"2026-06-30T05:57:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T05:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/734284\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T05:57:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T05:57:18","slug":"2026-position-breakdown-adding-kirk-cousins-and-fernando-mendoza-makes-for-intriguing-dynamic-in-the-quarterback-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/734284\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Position Breakdown: Adding Kirk Cousins and Fernando Mendoza makes for intriguing dynamic in the quarterback room"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break:break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.raiders.com\/team\/players-roster\/aidan-o-connell\/\" title=\"Aidan O&#039;Connell\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aidan O&#8217;Connell<\/a> is the lone quarterback returning to the Raiders quarterback room.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been a rollercoaster first three seasons for the 2023 fourth-rounder as he&#8217;s worked through injuries and multiple quarterback battles. In 21 games played and 17 starts to his name, he&#8217;s recorded 20 passing touchdowns and is just shy of 4,000 career passing yards.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve learned [there&#8217;s] no wasted years in the NFL,&#8221; O&#8217;Connell said. &#8220;Even when you&#8217;re losing, even when things are hard, you can still learn a lot. And I&#8217;ve learned a lot, even last year. &#8230; You&#8217;ve got to produce in the NFL, and so besides my wife and my parents, no one&#8217;s really going to feel bad for me. So, try to go out there and compete, no matter who&#8217;s calling plays or who&#8217;s out there.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aidan O&#8217;Connell is the lone quarterback returning to the Raiders quarterback room. It&#8217;s been a rollercoaster first three&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[28653,68073,399,23481,23482,316023,1832,398,396,397,316022,99],"class_list":["post-734284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-aidan-oconnell","tag-fernando-mendoza","tag-football","tag-home-centerpiece","tag-home-latest-stories","tag-jacob-clark","tag-kirk-cousins","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-news-position-breakdown","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}