Mendoza walked the walk between the lines. He sounded like a starting quarterback afterward, self-critical of the little miscues that dotted the performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, I let my teammates down today,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cBut it\u2019s a growing experience, and I feel like we\u2019re all growing. It showed me that I need to grow a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
There certainly were some areas he needed to improve. On his first drive, Mendoza forced a ball to running back Mike Washington Jr.<\/a>, getting the running back blasted by the Cardinals’ flat corner, who the QB either didn’t see lurking or didn’t anticipate speeding over. Later, he took a sack near the goal line, which he could have avoided by throwing the ball away. He also took another avoidable shot in the second half.<\/p>\n Mendoza\u2019s comments are understandable for a QB who strives for perfection. From an outside view — and regarding the things that fans should care about — the rookie passed with flying colors.<\/p>\n His TD laser<\/a> to Jack Bech<\/a> was a tight-window throw needed in the condensed part of the field. Mendoza\u2019s best throw of the night was a 19-yard strike<\/a> to Malik Benson<\/a> (another Raider to keep an eye on) between three defenders. The best part of the big play was that it came from under-center play-action, something Mendoza is just beginning to get used to. On the play, the QB made the fake, whipped his eyes around and found Benson at the top of his route. Just how Kubiak drew it up.<\/p>\n Mendoza pointed out that not all of his throws were as in rhythm.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s other passes I made that did not have great timing and anticipation,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cBut that was one that was a good connection. You see (starter) Kirk (Cousins) is timing and anticipation — boom, boom, boom. So that\u2019s an area I\u2019ve got to grow in.\u201d<\/p>\n Mendoza didn\u2019t push Cousins off the Week 1 starting gig with his preseason performance. Cousins, who led a nearly flawless opening drive touchdown sprint, has a firm grasp on that. But the rookie showed what he can be.<\/p>\n Mendoza flashed the playmaking that turned heads at Indiana. He showed an ability to grow. In a short time, he\u2019s developed aspects of his game that were heretofore unused. And afterward, he exhibited that he won\u2019t get thrown off by expectations or praise. The little miscues matter more to Mendoza. Those are the signs of a future being built in the bright lights of the desert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mendoza walked the walk between the lines. He sounded like a starting quarterback afterward, self-critical of the little…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[6255,68073,1812,3,6257,99],"class_list":["post-813551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-around-the-nfl","tag-fernando-mendoza","tag-las-vegas-raiders","tag-news","tag-no-minute","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813551","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=813551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}