Las Vegas Raiders Camp Update — August 16: Mendoza's First Film Has Kubiak Opening First-Team Reps to All Three Quarterbacks

Fernando Mendoza's first NFL film came back composed — 10-of-16 for 97 yards and a touchdown across four series — and by Friday Klint Kubiak was saying all three quarterbacks deserve first-team reps. In July we said the Raiders' season had one real question wearing a quarterback controversy as a disguise: not whether Kirk Cousins starts Week 1, but when Mendoza takes over, because the rebuild's entire clock runs through the rookie's timeline. Last Sunday we called it CONFIRMED because the date kept moving closer — Mendoza's first snaps with the starters, and Kubiak volunteering that he's "not married" to any position. We left two watch items: how the first-team reps would split ahead of the opener, and Mendoza's first live game action, which we called the most informative film of the Raiders' August.

The film arrived Thursday at Allegiant Stadium, and the scoreboard — Cardinals 27, Raiders 14 — is the least informative thing on it. Cousins started and played exactly one series, and it was smooth: a 10-play, 68-yard march, 5-of-6 for 50 yards, capped by a 13-yard touchdown to Michael Mayer, per Sam Gordon at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Then he was done, and the number one overall pick played the next four possessions. Mendoza finished 10-of-16 for 97 yards and a touchdown across 31 snaps, per Gordon and NBC's ProFootballTalk, and the shape of the outing matters more than the line. Levi Edwards at Raiders.com charted a jittery first drive, 1-of-3 for nine yards, followed by a 4-of-5 second drive that included a 19-yard throw the Associated Press described as fit to Malik Benson "between three defenders" and a six-yard touchdown to Jack Bech. He nearly added a second score to Deven Thompkins in the fourth quarter, ran twice for six yards, took one sack, and — this is the part coaches remember — did not shrink. Kubiak afterward: "Some guys, they get to the game and things change on them and it moves fast and they freak out. He was the opposite." His summary judgment, per the AP and the team's site: "I see an ascending player." Mendoza's own postgame was the other tell — "Unfortunately, I let my teammates down today. But it's a growing experience" — and Kubiak's response, per Myles Simmons at ProFootballTalk, was that the best quarterbacks he's been around are the ones who are hard on themselves.

Now the watch items. On the rep split, the practice-by-practice answer never surfaced — no attributable rep chart for the August 10 through 12 sessions appeared in anything we read — so the public answer came as game deployment plus coach-speak. The deployment: one series for the bridge, four for the rookie, with Kubiak saying beforehand, per Adam Hill at the Review-Journal, that Mendoza could get snaps with a few of the starters because all the starters were playing. The coach-speak came Friday and it raised the temperature. Asked about this week's plan, Kubiak told reporters, per Simmons at ProFootballTalk: "Whether it's Aidan O'Connell, Kirk, or Fernando — I would say all three of those guys deserve first-team reps," with the staff building the plan now. That is a further step than "not married." A head coach does not have to say that about a rookie barely a week after his first camp snaps with the ones. On the second watch item, the film delivered and moved the needle exactly as described above. Aidan O'Connell's 4-of-13 finish, for the record, did not.

Around the quarterbacks, the young roster kept announcing itself, with the usual preseason asterisks attached. Ashton Jeanty played with the starters and averaged nearly six yards a carry, per Edwards at Raiders.com. Rookie back Mike Washington Jr. ran for 63 yards including a 53-yard stiff-arm gallop the team says is its longest preseason run since 2017 — against Arizona's reserves, which is the honest frame. Bech caught three balls and the touchdown, drawing Kubiak's praise for his contested-catch ability. Undrafted edge Cian Slone piled up six solo tackles, three quarterback hits, and two sacks, mostly against backup protection, and undrafted receivers Chase Roberts and E.J. Williams Jr. drew standout notes from the team's site. The sobering entries: rookie corner Jermod McCoy, in his first game since December 2024 knee surgery, allowed two touchdown passes per the AP, though Kubiak said he "can't say enough great things" about the physical comeback; Maxx Crosby stood on the sideline after Kubiak's pregame "We'll see about Maxx. TBD"; edge Brennan Jackson landed on injured reserve with a foot injury, per Gordon; and the coach's own postgame diagnosis was self-directed — "our penalties. We really hurt ourselves." One roster note with an ending: Gordon reports veteran Matt Gay is close to securing the kicker job.

Does the July framing hold? Confirmed — the season's product is information about Mendoza, and the first live installment came back composed enough that the head coach responded by publicly opening the first-team reps to all three quarterbacks. What would change it: how those first-team reps actually split during the week in Houston — joint practice with the Texans, then the preseason game, against a pass rush Kubiak himself flagged as the real test for this offensive line — and whether Mendoza's second outing looks like the four series or the first drive. We'll check Sunday.

_Data via nflverse._