Soon after his name was called 1st overall in the 2026 NFL Draft, the Harmon Corner LED board at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue ran a 300-foot, PowerPoint-style ad congratulating Fernando Mendoza. Following that, multiple billboards went up across the city with just the word ‘FERNANDO.’ This was the quarterback Las Vegas was waiting for, and the city didn’t wait long to show it.

“To Mendoza’s credit, he said multiple times since he’s been drafted, he knows he is starting at the bottom of the totem pole. And that was clearly on display as OTA practice No. 2 got underway,” noted NFL Network’s Omar Ruiz. ‘Kirk Cousins was QB1, Aidan O’Connell, QB2, and then in a whole other practice field, seemingly in a galaxy far, far away, The Nandolorean was getting his work in with the third and fourth stringers.”

Inside the Raiders’ facility in Henderson, veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins has been the first quarterback on the field during OTAs, with Aidan O’Connell next, and Mendoza running behind them as the staff brings him along.

With 167 career starts across 14 NFL seasons, having Cousins be the QB1 solves everything for the Raiders this year. They get a competitive quarterback who can easily avoid last season’s 3-14 disaster. All the while, Fernando Mendoza watches a veteran at work and gets ready for his name to be called down the line. At the OTAs, Ruiz also went to head coach Klint Kubiak to pin down what “progress looks like” for a No. 1 pick, and walked away with a simple blueprint.

“Completions,” Kubiak declared, “getting the ball out into playmakers hands.”

Back at Indiana in 2025, Mendoza went 273-of-379 across 16 games. For Kubiak, those 106 missed throws are what the Heisman winner has to work on now, along with the footwork and under-center training he’s already working on. But as Omar Ruiz saw it, Mendoza only missed two passes, and left everyone amazed with the rest of his performance.

“From my perspective, Mendoza just had two incompletions,” Ruiz said. “He was working the field in and out of rhythms with the receivers; he was hitting guys at the top of their routes. He was hitting guys in stride, he was checking down, he was hitting screens in command of the huddle, seemingly doing it all for the Raiders here in practice number two.”

Inside the building, Kubiak has called Mendoza “as advertised” with a shrug – like there was never any doubt in who the Raiders drafted. He also pointed to the curiosity that makes Mendoza stand out, along with his work ethic.

“He has not disappointed,” Kubiak continued after the shrug. “He’s working his tail off. It’s very important to him that he asks a lot of great questions when he gets on the field. He’s no B.S.; he’s all ball.”

Offensive coordinator Andre Janocko has described Fernando Mendoza as a “sponge” and a “blank slate,” admitting that the young QB’s approach has helped the staff find a new perspective on everything. But that doesn’t help him start a game… yet.

On the outside, ESPN’s Adam Schefter has already circled a brutal November stretch with four road games as a reason the Raiders could stick with Cousins “until about December 1.”

As for Cousins, his arm strength was at full display at the OTAs, and so was his leadership. In one particular drill, Cousins saved a play by fixing a receiver’s position. His energy has infected the room, and even Coach Kubiak sees it.

“He’s a professional,” Kubiak said of Cousins. “He’s played a lot of football. He’s a leader that we’re counting on right now. You see that side of him when it gets competitive.”

Now, while Ruiz sees the current OTA dynamics and makes the case for Cousins as QB1, Kubiak hasn’t confirmed anything of that sort yet. For him, the evaluation is still very much open, and will be until training camp.

“It’s gonna reveal itself, especially in training camp,” Kubiak said when asked about the starting QB spot. “It’s gonna reveal itself here in the next eight OTAs and these minicamp practices. We definitely would (like to name a starter), but we’ll let the players figure that out for us with their tape.”

For Fernando Mendoza, the gap between the Harmon Corner billboard and a starting role is still big, but not insurmountable. And that’s where Tom Brady’s voice comes in to tip the scales – through a private brunch at the NFLPA Rookie Premiere in Los Angeles with Brady and Travis Scott on USC’s practice fields.

Life lessons with Tom Brady

At that Rookie Premiere, the NFLPA ran 41 rookies through photo shoots and partner stations, but for Mendoza, the closed-door session with Brady and Scott stood out so much that he filled a notepad to read back later.

“It was a private brunch, lunch, there were a lot of great lessons about leadership, playing, accountability, business,” Mendoza told Sports Illustrated. “It was all over the place, but the one consistent variable was that it was quality information, and it’s information that I wrote down on a notepad. I’ll be able to digest it when I read it back tonight and for the future.”

Brady’s lesson, as Mendoza recounted it, is that leadership comes down to caring about your teammates and caring about the team’s goals instead of chasing Pro Bowls or brand wins, which lines up with coaches already painting Mendoza as a “no B.S.” worker more forced on the job than the noise around him.

“The one biggest thing that I thought was awesome was when Tom talked about leadership and the two variables that you need to be a great leader,” Mendoza recalled. “One, care about your teammates, and second, care about your team’s goals. It’s not about being a Pro Bowler, being a star player. It’s about caring about your teammates, who they are, and caring about winning and the team’s ultimate goal, which is to win a championship.”

Now, with Cousins healthy and firing up people around him, it’s easy to think the safe play will be to stash Mendoza on the developmental backburner until December, and keep pointing to the schedule and Cousins’ experience. But Mendoza’s 16-0 Heisman season and a national title followed him out of Indiana. Since then, he has impressed franchise legends and the coaches and has taken Brady’s leadership rules home in a notebook. Calling this a pure redshirt year for Mendoza sells short what the Raiders are actually building.

The Nandalorian – the moniker Mendoza asked for in the Raiders’ schedule release video – is in the building, and he’s putting in the work behind Kirk Cousins. The veteran might really be the answer once training camp ends, but Mendoza’s name still takes center stage in the team’s future, just like those billboards.