The Las Vegas Raiders hold the first overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. First time since JaMarcus Russell in 2007. That went well.
Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman, went 16-0 at Indiana, and brought Bloomington its first national championship. He’s the pick. Everyone knows it. The Raiders’ owner, GM, and Tom Brady were all on Indiana’s sideline before the title game. Subtle.
But drafting Mendoza isn’t the hard part. What comes next is. And the Raiders are almost certainly going to screw it up.
Brady Sat. Montana Sat. Mahomes Sat. Mendoza Should Too.
Tom Brady didn’t play a single meaningful snap his rookie year in New England. Not one. He sat behind Drew Bledsoe for the entire 2000 season, watched, learned the playbook, figured out how Bill Belichick’s brain worked. When Bledsoe went down in Week 2 of 2001, Brady stepped in and won a Super Bowl five months later. He won five more after that.
That wasn’t an accident. The sitting mattered.
Joe Montana got drafted in the third round by San Francisco in 1979 as the 82nd overall pick. He appeared in games that rookie year but threw just 23 passes behind Steve DeBerg. He didn’t become the full-time starter until midway through his second season. Four Super Bowls came after that. Patrick Mahomes sat behind Alex Smith for almost his entire rookie year in 2017, starting only the meaningless Week 17 finale. Kansas City handed him the keys in 2018 and he won MVP. Three Super Bowl rings later, nobody’s questioning the approach.
Three of the four greatest quarterbacks in NFL history didn’t play their first year. That’s not a coincidence. It’s a blueprint.
The modern NFL ignores it completely.
The NFL’s Obsession With Ruining Rookies
We live in an era where a first-round quarterback is expected to start Week 1 of his rookie year, compete for a playoff spot by Year 2, and get dumped by Year 3 if it hasn’t worked. The patience required to develop an elite quarterback doesn’t exist anymore. And the results show.
Look at the current daily QB rankings. How many of the top 10 guys started immediately as rookies and succeeded? Mahomes didn’t. Brady didn’t. The ones who did start right away and struggled early, like Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold, only figured it out later when they landed in the right situation at 27 or 28 years old. Darnold bounced from the Jets to Carolina to San Francisco before finally clicking. Mayfield was toast in Cleveland, washed in Carolina, then suddenly a top-10 quarterback in Tampa.
Daniel Jones got cut by the Giants and now he’s a legitimate starter in Indianapolis.
| QB | Drafted | Sat Year 1? | First Super Bowl Win |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tom Brady | 2000 (Round 6) | Yes, behind Bledsoe | 2001 (Year 2) |
| Joe Montana | 1979 (Round 3) | Mostly, behind DeBerg | 1981 (Year 3) |
| Patrick Mahomes | 2017 (Round 1) | Yes, behind Alex Smith | 2019 (Year 3) |
The pattern screams at you. Let the kid watch. Let him learn. Stop throwing 21-year-olds to the wolves because your fanbase is impatient.
The Raiders Already Have Their Bridge. They Just Don’t Know It.
Kenny Pickett is sitting right there on the roster. He was the 20th overall pick in the 2022 draft, a first-round talent who’s been bounced around from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia to Cleveland to Las Vegas in three years. Sound familiar? That’s the Mayfield path. That’s the Darnold path. Pickett turns 28 in June 2026. And 28, weirdly, keeps being the age where these castoff quarterbacks figure it out.
Pickett’s a free agent after this season. The smart move is re-signing him cheap, cutting Geno Smith and his $18.5 million guaranteed for 2026, and letting Pickett start 17 games while Mendoza watches from the sideline with a tablet. Pickett showed flashes when he came in for the injured Smith in Week 14 against Denver, completing 8 of 11 for 97 yards and a touchdown.
Is Pickett a franchise quarterback? Probably not. That’s the point. You don’t need a franchise quarterback for one year. You need a professional who can run the offense and give the coaching staff game film to teach from while the rookie develops.
The Dome Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About
The Raiders play indoors at Allegiant Stadium. Nice building. Climate controlled. Terrible for playoff football.
Only three dome teams have ever won a Super Bowl. Three. The 1999 Rams, 2006 Colts, and 2009 Saints. Run the Raiders through any Super Bowl simulator and the odds aren’t great even if Mendoza turns into the next Mahomes. Dome teams get soft. They don’t deal with wind or cold or any of the conditions that define January football. The Vikings have four Super Bowl losses and zero wins. Playing indoors is a crutch, not an advantage.
None of this means Mendoza can’t succeed. It means the Raiders need every edge available. The biggest edge is time.
Forget the Rankings. Watch the Ages.
The 2026 quarterback market is fascinating if you look at the ages. Mac Jones at the top of trade boards, Daniel Jones as a potential free agent re-signing in Indy, Mendoza as the draft’s crown jewel. Look at what the all-time team rankings tell us about where these guys fit.
Mac Jones turns 28 in September 2026. He went 5-3 as San Francisco’s fill-in starter this season while Brock Purdy dealt with injuries, on an $8.4 million deal. Jones was a disaster in New England, a write-off, completely done. Except he wasn’t. He just needed a different coaching staff and a scheme that didn’t ask him to be something he’s not.
Then there’s Tua Tagovailoa at No. 6 and Kyler Murray at No. 9. What have they won? Tua got benched this year. Kyler’s Cardinals can’t get out of their own way. These are six-to-nine win quarterbacks. Nothing more. Somebody’s going to overpay for one of them this offseason because NFL front offices never learn.
The Mendoza draft isn’t just about Mendoza. It’s about whether the Raiders are smart enough to build around him correctly. And building correctly means one year of patience.
One year. Pickett starts. Mendoza watches. And in 2027, you hand the kid the keys to a team that’s ready for him instead of one destroyed by the pressure of a losing rookie season.
The Raiders won’t do it. They never do the smart thing. But the blueprint is right there. Brady, Montana, Mahomes. Three quarterbacks. Three rings apiece. Zero rookie starts that mattered.
AI-Assisted Content (AIAC): Human ideas, drafts, and final edits—enhanced by AI.