Raiders stick with Kirk Cousins at QB vs. Jets, say No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza will play eventually

If you were waiting to see whether the Raiders would hand the keys to their rookie this week, you got your answer Monday afternoon. Not yet.

Las Vegas head coach Klint Kubiak said at his Monday, Oct. 26, press conference that Kirk Cousins will start Sunday’s Week 8 game against the New York Jets. “There is no controversy,” Kubiak said, according to ESPN.

That’s a cleaner message than the one Kubiak left on the table Sunday. After a 35-21 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, he told reporters the team was thinking about everything to fix its problems, and he named the red zone, third-quarter play, personnel and scheme, Yahoo Sports reported, citing ESPN’s Ryan McFadden. With No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza on the roster, “everything” got read as a quarterback change in a hurry.

So, what about Mendoza?

Kubiak didn’t close the door. He said Mendoza is “going to play at some point,” per Pro Football Talk, and told ESPN the team has a plan for the rookie but no timeline for it. NFL.com’s Monday roundup reported the same.

Mind you, the numbers make it hard to bench Cousins. Through seven games he has 1,877 passing yards, a league-leading 16 touchdown passes and five interceptions, according to ESPN. He threw for 295 yards and two scores on 26-of-44 passing against the Rams, though a lot of that came after Las Vegas fell behind 28-3 in the first half.

The trend line is the part worth watching. Cousins had nine touchdown passes in the Raiders’ first three games, all wins. He has seven in the four losses since. Las Vegas sits at 3-4, third in the AFC West, but Kubiak made clear he still sees a team in the race.

Why it matters

McGraw Media’s read: this is the right call for one week, and Kubiak’s own list explains why. Red-zone finishing, third-quarter play and scheme aren’t problems you solve by throwing a rookie in front of them, and the quarterback leading the league in touchdown passes isn’t the first thing to fix. At the same time, “at some point” with no timeline is a holding pattern, not a plan fans can see. From a PR standpoint, Monday’s message was clean. Sunday’s was the one that started the fire. If the skid hits five against the Jets, the Mendoza question comes right back, and next time a firm answer will be harder to give.

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