Fernando Mendoza isn't the Raiders' starter. Here's everything he did as a backup in Week 1

TheTools · 21.09.2026 04:42 · source · permalink

HENDERSON, Nev. -- Fernando Mendoza, chin strap fastened, had Klint Kubiak's voice ringing in his helmet. While the head coach made the play call, the rookie's eyes shifted to the playsheet on his wristband, and he relayed the call aloud. As his teammates walked to the line of scrimmage, Mendoza verbalized his possible responsibilities on the play.

"Some plays take you a different way depending on coverage, depending if there's a blitz," Mendoza told The Athletic. "There's some cans. There's some alerts that get changed. There's little tendencies in the plays that I have to remember."

But before Mendoza could go under center, take the snap and make his drop, he caught himself.

"There were a couple of times," Mendoza says, "I was so locked in."

The reality: Mendoza's quarterbacks coach, Mike Sullivan, heard Mendoza's play call, not the Raiders' offensive line. Below Mendoza's cleats, the turf was spray-painted white, the sideline at Allegiant Stadium. Mendoza was 30 yards from veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins, who was taking the snaps during Las Vegas's season-opening win over the Miami Dolphins. Mendoza served as the veteran's backup, the first time the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft didn't start his team's season opener since 2018.

Mendoza, though, prepared for Sunday as if he were the starter. He carried the process over to game day, despite not playing a snap. On every offensive play the Raiders ran, Mendoza went through his process as if he was in the game, to the point of conducting his footwork and passing progression. He admits he fought the urge to perform his dropback and throwing motion along with Cousins on a few occasions.

Mendoza has taken No. 2 on the depth chart in stride since Kubiak announced Cousins the starter on Sept. 2. The Raiders believe letting the rookie watch from behind the veteran will help his development, and Mendoza says he's already learned plenty from one game observing Cousins.

"How efficient you need to be to win," Mendoza said of his takeaways. "The margin for error is smaller. It gets smaller from practice to the preseason to then the actual games. Windows are tighter. Everything is harder."

That difficulty is why Mendoza is preparing meticulously, including going through every detail of every play on the sideline while Cousins does the same on the field. When Mendoza is eventually called upon to become Raiders' QB1, he wants to be ready.

Mendoza says his process observing Cousins on game days is the same as during walkthroughs and practices. He simultaneously mimics Cousins' every action, hearing and saying the play call, then making mock decisions about his throwing progression on passing plays. He even breaks the huddle -- a huddle of one -- after relaying Kubiak's call to imaginary teammates.

The only difference on game days, Mendoza said, is carrying out simulated movements. During practice, Sullivan has Mendoza perform "America's Drill," where the rookie walks through the play, doing his footwork and progression, before Cousins leads the starters against the scout team.

"Evidently, I can't do that in the game because I don't want to be a tell on the sideline and give the play away with a pass or run gesture," Mendoza says. "But I think it was great to be involved and stay engaged with that."

Instead of acting out plays, Mendoza stays glued to Sullivan's side on game days. After breaking his pretend huddle, he tells Sullivan everything the opposing defense could do based on look and personnel, and how he would react to it. Sullivan will throw out a scenario or additional thoughts, and the two go back and forth before watching the play unfold on the field together. They quickly debrief, then move on to the next play.

"It's great to go from my self-visualization walkthroughs in practice to a game where I'm able to see a live-speed defense of the opponent," Mendoza says. "Being able to visualize what I would do in that specific scenario is very important, whether it's a certain look and I'm like, 'OK, coach Sullivan, I'm thinking about going here or using this part of my progression in this play.' Or sometimes we have a pure progression play where I'm seeing it as it goes and reacting. 'Hey, the No. 1 wasn't there. Oh, the No. 2 is there,' and throw."

Mendoza is a firm believer in verbalization -- he said talking aloud with Sullivan through the play reaffirms it mentally, reassures his process and creates muscle and mental memory. He added that the process was Sullivan and offensive coordinator Andrew Janocko's idea, and Kubiak called it part of the team's efforts to "find every edge that we can to keep getting him ready to play."

"I think you're just putting yourself in the game, so you're getting game reps just like you would at practice," Janocko says of how Mendoza benefits from the process. "You're getting game reps, and that's twofold. That goes for down the road and prepping to play, but that also puts you in that game. So, when your number is called, whether it be the next snap or a while down the road, you're establishing yourself for game reps."

This is not uncommon for backup quarterbacks in the NFL. Cousins, who served as backup for fellow rookie Robert Griffin III in Washington during the 2012 season, says he followed a similar protocol.

"Just kind of staying in it at all times and being ready at any moment," Cousins said of his mindset as a backup. "That's kind of always the journey when you're one player away."

Third-stringer Aidan O'Connell, who backed up then-Raiders starter Jimmy Garoppolo as a rookie before starting the final nine games of the 2023 season, told Mendoza that he's used the same approach in each of his seasons in Las Vegas.

"Any No. 2 quarterback, they're listening to the call," Kubiak said. "They're saying it in their head what they'd be going through progression-wise, check-wise, putting themselves in the game on every snap."

Yet not every No. 2 quarterback wears their helmet for the entire game. Most don a headset or earpiece and wear a baseball cap.

Asked why he wore the helmet, "I'm not holding this big helmet up (to my ear)" to hear the play call, Mendoza says.

How about a headset?

"I was never offered a headset. I didn't know that was an option."

That was fine with Mendoza; it added to the realism of his simulated game within the game.

"Wearing the helmet is pretty crucial because that's where the play calls come in through, and that's the microphone you hear from the speaker," Mendoza says. "When I wear the helmet, I can (experience) what I would actually see on the field."

As for how he interacted with Cousins during the game, Mendoza says he tried to keep it to a minimum. He talked through a few coverages and offered to be a "second set of eyes" on anything Cousins was unsure of. Mendoza says he was quick to offer feedback, but he wanted to allow Cousins to focus fully on the game. Mendoza says he spent most of his time observing during the meetings between Cousins, Janocko and Sullivan when the offense was on the sidelines.

"I watch them get on the iPad, go through plays, watch them make sure we're making all the corrections," Mendoza says. "I want to be there and engage with that. Then I can ask any additional questions to coach Sullivan or coach Janocko if needed."

Mendoza says aside from preparing for eventual action, his main job on game days as the backup is encouraging and helping his teammates. He was among the first to congratulate Cousins after each of his three touchdowns. And after his two interceptions, Mendoza says he did his best to "hype him up." Otherwise, he's helping however he can. After one drive, Mendoza was spotted on the sideline fixing star center Tyler Linderbaum's shoulder pads.

Mendoza desperately wants to play, but in the meantime, the rookie is embracing the Raiders' plan for him to learn from the sideline.

"I think it's going to help me going forward to see the battle rhythm," Mendoza says. "Really see the battle through the week of how we install plays, how we practice plays and how they show up on game day with coach Kubiak doing it. Obviously, he was very successful last week, so I'm excited to keep on staying engaged and keep on learning and developing."

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Fernando Mendoza isn't the Raiders' starter. Here's everything he did as a backup in Week 1

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