I’m not breaking any news by telling you Fernando Mendoza will be the starting quarterback for the Las Vegas Raiders at some point in 2026. But I might be breaking your eardrums, or at least some new ground after he just threw a pick-six, by saying that Mendoza really should start in Week 1.
Head coach Klint Kubiak has thus far declined to name a starter, despite all signs pointing to Kirk Cousins beginning the season under center. This seemingly makes sense; let Mendoza learn behind a veteran quarterback, give him some time to get used to an NFL life before throwing him into the fire. But man … I have never agreed with that theory of QB development.
Sitting your first-round quarterback does not necessarily help them
In a sizable study for ESPN in 2024, Bill Barnwell proved that, historically, just over half of first-round quarterbacks do not become NFL-caliber starters. Then, in a sample-size-challenged but still excellent study (also in 2024), Eric Eager at Sumer Sports showed that (to quote directly) “There is no statistical evidence that sitting a quarterback in year one, or trying to sit a quarterback in year one, positively impacts his career.”
This data cannot and should not be used to explain Mendoza’s success or failure, given he is the first and only quarterback in history to experience his exact roster, coaching and team-composition situation. Whether he will be a bust, solid starter or Hall of Famer depends on his talent, ability to handle the pressure of being the number one pick and a number of outside factors … ones that his team will try to control in vain.
Young quarterback development is a tortuous world as a fan, so I can only imagine how awful it is for the people in the organization whose jobs are tied to the success of their QB. Teams that try to sit their rookie QB for all or some of their first year are trying to control some of these developmental factors, though I wager much of it is motivated by fear of outside (or internal) criticism that “he started before he was ready!” It’s all fun and games until an ambitious assistant coach whispers that in the owner’s ear and gets their boss fired to their benefit.
Teams are chasing the Patrick Mahomes story in vain
I don’t think Kubiak is remotely at risk of losing his job over Mendoza decisions, especially since the Raiders are currently paying tens of millions of dollars to four former head coaches. Instead, I speculate his attempt to control Mendoza’s development is a misguided attempt to mimic the story of the best thing since sliced bread: Patrick Mahomes.
The fact that Mahomes sat his entire first season has broken the brains of many fanbases and organizations who draft a first-round QB and then clamor for him to sit so he can “be the next Patrick Mahomes.” I will reply that do you people actually think Mahomes is Mahomes because he sat behind Alex Smith for a year?! Mahomes is among the most talented human beings ever to play sports in history, and I’d bet my mortgage that his success had a lot more to do with being Patrick Mahomes than it did the year he sat behind Smith.
But saying that Mahomes succeeded because he sat is an unfalsifiable claim because disproving it requires a time machine. If Mendoza succeeds after sitting for eight weeks, everyone will celebrate that they didn’t throw him out there too early. If he succeeded after starting week one, nobody would say, “oh, well I guess he didn’t need to sit for a few weeks.” Everyone would just forget about it.
Sitting a rookie QB is an attempt to control the uncontrollable
Other than the two studies I referenced above, I can’t actually prove that sitting or starting a specific QB is good or bad for them — we just know that, on balance, it hasn’t really affected their career. Each case depends on day-to-day factors that I don’t have information on, as well as on how their talent translates to the pros … which is the half-billion dollar question.
All I can tell you is that sitting your top QB feels like an attempt to control something that cannot be controlled, to artificially install a margin of error for your decisions when none is actually required. It’s like bunting in baseball: not efficient, basically never a good idea but also conceptually unfalsifiable.
So in the spirit of making conceptually unfalsifiable claims, I’ll tell you my theory of quarterback development: some guys can handle playing NFL quarterback and some can’t. You can improve or screw things up on the edges, but you can’t make a Honda Civic a Ferrari by swapping the logo.
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