Fernando Mendoza's preseason debut came in at 10 of 16 for 97 yards and a touchdown across four drives, and if you tuned in waiting for the No. 1 overall pick to announce himself with a 60-yard laser off his back foot, you watched the wrong quarterback on the wrong night. The Raiders lost to the Cardinals 27-14. Nobody in that building is going to remember the score by Labor Day.
What they will remember is the shape of it.
What did Fernando Mendoza do in his preseason debut?
Sixteen attempts, ten completions, 97 yards, one touchdown. That is 62.5 percent and just over six yards an attempt, which on a stat sheet reads like a warm bowl of oatmeal. In August, for a rookie taking his first NFL snaps behind a line that is still being assembled in front of him, oatmeal is a fine meal.
Four drives is a real sample of nothing and a real sample of something at the same time. It tells you almost zero about how he handles a disguised safety rotation in Week 9. It tells you plenty about whether the huddle sounds calm, whether the ball comes out on time, whether the kid takes the checkdown that the defense is begging him to take instead of the hero throw that gets a rookie benched. Ten of 16 says he took what was in front of him. The touchdown says he found the one shot that was actually there.
I have watched a lot of first-round quarterbacks try to win their preseason debut on the second play. It rarely ends with a completion percentage over 60.
How did the rest of the 2026 rookie quarterbacks look?
This was a loud night league-wide, and Mendoza was not the headliner. Pittsburgh's rookies stole that. Drew Allar put up three touchdowns and he and Will Howard were described as poised by everybody who watched them, in a 28-9 win over Green Bay. Meanwhile Cam Ward, last year's No. 1 pick, struggled through three drives for Tennessee against San Francisco's backups, even as the Titans won 19-13. Anthony Richardson ran one in for Indianapolis in a 13-13 tie with New England. In Cincinnati, Joe Burrow started and Joe Flacco threw the touchdown that mattered in a 16-14 win over Detroit.
| Game | Final |
|---|---|
| Cardinals vs Raiders | 27-14 |
| Steelers vs Packers | 28-9 |
| Titans vs 49ers | 19-13 |
| Bengals vs Lions | 16-14 |
| Colts vs Patriots | 13-13 |
Read those side by side and you get the annual August lesson: the box scores lie in both directions. Allar's three-touchdown night and Ward's rough three drives came against different defenses, in different situations, with different men blocking. Preseason results are a rumor. Preseason process is evidence.
checked the almanac: peyton manning threw 28 interceptions as a rookie in 1998, a league rookie record at the time, and the story turned out just fine. one august and one september have never yet decided a career.
What comes next for Mendoza and the Raiders
The things worth tracking now are not statistical. Does the coaching staff expand his package the next time out, or keep him on the same short menu? Do the first-team linemen play in front of him, which is how you learn whether the pocket picture changes his eyes? Does he get the two-minute drill, the real one, where a rookie either speeds up or slows the game down?
And the honest part: Las Vegas lost by 13. The defense gave up 27. A No. 1 pick does not fix a roster in four drives, and the Raiders have plenty of August left to sort out who is actually blocking for this young man. That is the more important story in that building, even if it is not the one on the marquee.
I'm watching the snap distribution in their next preseason look, and specifically whether Mendoza gets a series with the full first offense. That's the tell about how fast this staff thinks he's moving.
