Questions Around Raiders' Presumed Top Pick, Mendoza, Remain

The Raiders Are Set on Mendoza

After starting seven different quarterbacks over the past three seasons, Las Vegas passing on the most recent Heisman Trophy winning quarterback who just led his team to an undefeated season and a national championship are non-existent. There is no way the Raiders will not draft Mendoza.

The Raiders have come too far in the process not to do so, even giving Mendoza the playbook to get a headstart on things. Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak recently explained how internal conversations and dealings around the top pick in the upcoming draft have gone with he and the front office.

 "Just with the pick itself, it's just a daily conversation with John [Spytek] and our scouts. We have draft meetings coming up when we get back here," Kubiak said at the league's Annual Meetings.

"We're really spending a lot of time by ourselves watching tape, then we come together later in the day and talk about what we see and starting to put our board together. So, it's just an ongoing process all the way up to draft day." 

“If we’re being honest and people won’t say it, I will. Ty Simpson, schematically, is a better fit or marriage for what the Las Vegas Raiders would do under Klint Kubiak than Fernando Mendoza,” Orlovsky said. 

“Klint Kubiak is a coach, and he’s not going to change. This is how he was brought up in football. Most of the things that he does, at least half of the things that he does from a scheme standpoint, are underneath the center.”

Every offseason, especially those with a clear-cut No. 1 quarterback, there is almost always a somewhat overlooked quarterback that gets catapulted into the conversation, even when there is not seemingly much of a conversation to be had. This offseason, it is quarterback Ty Simpson.

A notable example of this happened with Cam Newton and Jimmy Clauson. This is not to compare Mendoza to Newton or Simpson to Clauson, but it is a quick example of the seemingly out of left field suggestion that Simpson is better than Mendoza, as Orlovsky continues to make.

Time will tell, as being the No. 1 pick or top quarterback picked does not automatically make that player better than another play on the actual football field. However, this time of year is to base opinions on the future on the information at hand.

Considering the season both quarterbacks just came off of and their respective bodies of work, there seems to be a pretty obvious answer to which quarterback is better right now, which is all that will matter when the Raiders select first in the upcoming NFL Draft.