The 2026 NFL Draft was over six weeks ago, and Fernando Mendoza still does not have a contract.
The first-round quarterback is one of the two final holdouts from the entire draft class, along with Ty Simpson. Every other player taken in the first round has signed. Most of the second round is done. The Mendoza situation is starting to draw real attention from around the league.
The issue, according to multiple reports, is the structure of the guaranteed money. Mendoza’s camp is pushing for offset language to be removed from the contract, which is a normal request for top picks but one that some teams refuse to budge on. The franchise that drafted him has been a holdout on this issue for years.
This is the standard rookie contract drama, but the timing is starting to matter. NFL training camps open in about six weeks. Veteran minicamp is already happening. Mendoza needs to be on the field with his new team learning the playbook if he is going to have any chance of competing for early playing time.
Quarterback development is the part of this that should worry both sides. The whole point of taking a quarterback in the first round is to get him on the field and start his clock. Every week Mendoza misses is a week of timing work, a week of meeting room reps, a week of relationship building with his receivers. Those days do not come back.
The team also has a real interest in resolving this. Rookie quarterbacks are the most efficient asset in football precisely because they are cheap and on track to start within a year or two. Holding out on a $300,000 contract dispute over offset language is the kind of penny-wise, pound-foolish move that gets coaches fired.
The agent side has its own logic. Once you give up offsets on a top quarterback contract, every subsequent rookie deal at the position is going to include them. There is a real precedent argument for digging in.
Mendoza himself has tried to stay out of the public drama. He has reportedly been working out on his own, watching film of his future team’s offense, and staying ready to sign whenever the deal comes together. He has not given any interviews complaining about the team or the negotiation.
The other piece is the Ty Simpson situation. Simpson is the other top holdout, and his negotiation has similar sticking points. The two contracts are likely to get done within a week or two of each other, because once one side blinks, the other one will too.
The pressure is going to build over the next few weeks. Training camp deadlines are real. Players have to be signed before they can do any team work, and quarterbacks especially have to be on the field every day of training camp to have a shot at the starting job.
Mendoza was drafted to be a long-term franchise piece. The team and the player both need this to get resolved before it becomes the kind of story that defines a rookie season. The clock is ticking.
Six weeks is a long time. The window to fix this is closing fast.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
