Analyst believes Raiders' QB competition could end unexpectedly

At this point, pretty much everyone in the Las Vegas Raiders' camp is locked into the quarterback competition between veteran Kirk Cousins and rookie Fernando Mendoza.

It's a friendly competition, which is a good thing. It's not like two rookies or two vets going at it for the prize. Cousins is widely expected to start this season, and Mendoza is also expected to take over at some point and eventually become the franchise quarterback for the Raiders.

That's if everything goes as planned. But things don't always go as planned in the NFL, and the Raiders could shake things up with an unexpected decision.

Kirk Cousins and Fernando Mendoza could end their competition in an unexpected way

On Tuesday, veteran NFL reporter Vincent Bonsignore of the California Post made some training camp observations that were interesting. In a post on X, he said that there's a "real quarterback battle" happening right now in the Raiders' training camp and there's actually a "real chance" Mendoza gets the start.

"There's actually a real QB battle in Raiders camp," Bonsignore said. "I still believe Kirk gets the opener, but it's not etched in stone. Fernando has a real chance to win the job."