Kirk Cousins is the Raiders’ starting quarterback. Fernando Mendoza, the No. 1 overall pick, is the backup. Head coach Klint Kubiak made it official, and the first start comes against the Miami Dolphins on Sept. 13.
A lot of people will read that as a franchise flinching. I read it as a franchise doing exactly what it planned to do.
Kubiak’s stated reason was performance. He said Cousins “played really good football” and that “Kirk’s had a really good offseason, very good camp and he’s earned it.” That is not a coach hiding behind a veteran. That is a coach saying the older quarterback won the competition on the field.
The context matters more than the quote. The Raiders signed Cousins in April, less than a month after the Falcons released him, and the plan before Mendoza even arrived was to let a young quarterback sit and develop. Cousins was not brought in as a bridge that the team hoped to abandon by September. He was brought in specifically so that the No. 1 pick would not have to play before he was ready.
So when the team follows through on that plan, calling it a surprise misses what the signing was for in the first place.
Now, the case against. Teams take a quarterback first overall because they believe he is the answer, and every game a rookie sits is a game he is not learning at NFL speed. There is a real school of thought that says the classroom does not replicate live bullets and that the fastest way to develop a franchise quarterback is to hand him the job in Week 1 and let him take his lumps.
I understand the argument. I just think it loses to the alternative here, because the alternative is not a disaster. Some teams sit a rookie behind a placeholder who cannot play. That is a waste of a season and everybody knows it. Cousins is not that. Sitting behind a starter who is actually competent means Mendoza gets to learn without the team throwing away its year to teach him.
Kubiak was asked whether there is an expectation that Mendoza plays this season. His answer: “Let’s work to Miami first.”
That is coachspeak, but it is honest coachspeak. It does not close the door and it does not promise anything. Which is the correct posture, because the answer really does depend on how the season goes, and no coach knows that in early September.
Here is what I would watch. If Cousins plays well and the Raiders are competitive, the redshirt year works exactly as designed and Mendoza takes over next spring with a full year inside an NFL building behind him. If the Raiders fall out of it early, the calculus flips fast, and Mendoza will be starting well before December.
The failure case is the middle. A team hovering around .500 has every incentive to keep riding the veteran and no good reason to develop the rookie, and that is how a first overall pick loses a year for nothing.
For now, though, the Raiders made the decision their offseason pointed at. Cousins earned the job in camp and Mendoza gets to watch a professional do it before he has to. Against Miami on Sept. 13, that looks like the right way to open.
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.
