Fernando Mendoza is about to get his first real stage, and the Raiders are making sure he’ll have plenty of room to show what he can do.
Coach Klint Kubiak said Tuesday that the rookie quarterback will see significant action Thursday when Las Vegas opens the preseason against the Arizona Cardinals. “I look forward to seeing him out there with his teammates. [There] are a lot of guys that we need to evaluate, but he will get plenty of reps,” Kubiak told the media.
That matters because Mendoza is not just any rookie. He went No. 1 overall in the 2026 NFL Draft, and every snap he takes now will feed into a bigger question: how soon does Las Vegas need him to be the guy?
For now, the Raiders are set to begin the season with veteran Kirk Cousins. The plan was simple enough when they signed him - let Mendoza develop without being rushed. But a strong preseason has a way of changing the math, especially when the rookie keeps flashing the kind of talent that makes teams rethink patience.
Mendoza already gave the Raiders a taste of that during training camp. Working with the first-team offense while Cousins was out, he hit touchdown passes to Tre Tucker, Brock Bowers and Michael Mayer. Those were practice reps, though, and Thursday brings the part that actually counts: live NFL action.
That’s the same path fellow rookie quarterback Carson Beck took for the Cardinals last week, when he turned heads in his preseason debut. Mendoza now gets his turn to answer, with the brightest spotlight in the 2026 quarterback class trained squarely on him.
One preseason game won’t decide the Raiders’ quarterback plan by itself. But if Mendoza looks calm, sharp and in control, it will be a lot harder for Las Vegas to hold tightly to its original schedule. Stack enough performances like that, and the idea of him becoming the Raiders’ starting quarterback sooner rather than later starts to feel a lot more real.
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