Kirk Cousins got pulled from the Raiders’ preseason opener one series after throwing a touchdown, and the quarterback competition everyone in Las Vegas keeps insisting is real just proved it isn’t.
Cousins went 5-of-6 for 50 yards, marched Las Vegas 68 yards on ten plays, and capped it with a 13-yard touchdown to Michael Mayer to open the game. Clean drive, zero mistakes, the exact kind of series that’s supposed to buy a guy more rope, not less. Instead he was pulled before the second series even started, and Fernando Mendoza, the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft, jogged in stone cold.
I had a few bucks riding on this quarterback competition staying interesting past August. Should’ve known better.
Because this camp has already had its share of chaos this summer, and none of it has moved the number-one spot at all. Mendoza’s first series stalled out right after he converted a third-and-8 to Jack Bech, and Las Vegas punted anyway. That’s a totally normal rookie result, nothing to build a case on either way.
Then he went out and led his own touchdown drive: a 19-yard completion to Malik Benson, a 53-yard run from Mike Washington Jr., an 8-yard sack he shook off like it was nothing, and a 6-yard touchdown to Bech with 3:13 left in the half. Mendoza finished his Raiders debut 10-of-16 for 97 yards, a touchdown, and zero interceptions, in a game Las Vegas still dropped 27-14 to the Cardinals.
Cousins did the one thing you’re supposed to do at the quarterback position and got yanked anyway.
Mendoza didn’t blow it, and it still didn’t matter.
That’s the part that should bother Raiders fans, way more than the final score. This wasn’t a rookie getting exposed and the incumbent reclaiming his job by default. This was a rookie playing well enough to at least complicate the story, and Kubiak closed the door on it anyway in his postgame press conference. He didn’t dress it up.
https://twitter.com/gregauman/status/2088101785567420482
Job to lose, not job to win.
Cousins keeps the keys unless he drives the car into a wall himself. Mendoza has to be undeniable just to get a look, and Saturday night he was about as close to undeniable as a backup gets and still didn’t get one.
The Raiders already named Cousins the starter once this summer, back before a single preseason snap had been played, so none of this should shock anybody who was paying attention in June. What’s different now is watching that declaration survive contact with a rookie who actually balled in his Raiders debut against the Cardinals. Cousins is still the Raiders’ starter walking out of the preseason and into the opener against Miami. Mendoza’s job, apparently, is to keep playing well enough that it stops being fair, and hope somebody in that building eventually notices.
