Klint Kubiak Says Everything Is on the Table at Quarterback: What a Fernando Mendoza Switch Would Mean for the Raiders
The Las Vegas Raiders were 3-0. They are now 3-4, they have lost four in a row, and after a 35-21 loss to the Rams on Sunday their head coach would not rule out starting the No. 1 pick next week.
Asked whether Fernando Mendoza might replace Kirk Cousins, Klint Kubiak did not say no. “I think at this point, we’re thinking about everything,” he said. “How to fix our problems, how to fix our issues in the red zone, in the third quarter. Personnel, scheme, we’ve got to talk about all of it.”
He did say no to one version of the question. Asked whether he considered going to Mendoza in the second half, with Las Vegas having cut a 22-point hole to 10: “We made it a competitive game in the third quarter, so no.”
Cousins Is Not the Reason the Raiders Are Losing
The quarterback went 26 of 44 for 295 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions against Los Angeles. His 16 passing touchdowns lead the NFL. He has five interceptions and a 97.4 passer rating through seven starts, at 38 years old, on a team that had no business being 3-0 in the first place.
What has collapsed around him is everything else. The Raiders ran 17 times for 48 yards on Sunday and have not reached 100 rushing yards in a game since Week 3. Ashton Jeanty averaged 1.9 yards on eight carries. Las Vegas went 5 of 19 on third and fourth down and scored once in five trips to the red zone. Kubiak knows it: “You can’t win in this league having to throw it as much as we are throwing. If there’s no balance, then you are playing from behind.”
The defense is worse. Since Week 4 the Raiders have given up 35.8 points and 416.5 yards a game. The Rams rushed for 199.
Which Is Why Mendoza Is Going to Play Anyway
None of that will save the job, because the split that decides this has nothing to do with scheme. Cousins threw nine touchdowns in the three wins and seven in the four losses, and a 3-4 team holding the first pick’s rookie contract in reserve starts doing arithmetic about January.
Mendoza went No. 1 overall in April after winning the Heisman Trophy at Indiana, going 16-0 and beating Miami for the national championship on the back of a 41-touchdown, six-interception season. He has thrown eight NFL passes, six of them completions, in a fourth quarter at New England.
Cousins signed in Las Vegas on April 6, three weeks before that draft. He knew exactly what he was signing. “It’s really the same every day that it was in March or April,” he said Sunday. “If I’m not the best option, then I don’t want to be out there, either.” He added that “the organization will do what they feel is best,” and that Mendoza “has done a great job and has a bright future ahead.”
The Money Makes It Easy
The headline on his contract reads five years and $172 million. The reality, per Adam Schefter, is one fully guaranteed year at $20 million with a club option for two more at $80 million, and Atlanta is paying $8.7 million of this season. Benching Cousins costs the Raiders nothing they have not already spent.
Owner Mark Davis has left the timing to his football people and set no deadline. On Mendoza he said, “If he can play football, he’s going to be great.”
Las Vegas plays at the Jets on Nov. 1. Cousins has been the best thing about a 3-4 football team, and he is still going to be holding a clipboard before Thanksgiving.
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.
