The Two Things Mendoza Brings That Kirk Cousins Couldn't

HOW SEATTLE WILL DEFEND FERNANDO

Fernando Mendoza is getting thrown right into the fire in his first NFL start, and Mike Macdonald's Seahawks defense is about as tough a test as you could ask for. So how will Seattle try to confuse the Raiders' rookie quarterback, and where might Mendoza have some opportunities to make plays? Seahawks insider Corbin K. Smith joined me to break down Macdonald's defensive scheme, how Seattle could try to take Brock Bowers out of the game and where the Raiders might be able to exploit some weaknesses. Plus, we dive into the key matchups on the other side of the ball that could determine Sunday's game. If you want to know what Mendoza is up against in his NFL debut, check out the full breakdown above!

WHAT FERNANDO IS UP AGAINST THIS WEEK

This week on the podcast, we’ve talked a lot about how the Raiders’ offense may change with Fernando Mendoza under center compared to Kirk Cousins, but there are two areas in particular I want to highlight today because they’ve been major talking points, and I’ll also weave in how that all translates to this weekend’s matchup with the Seahawks, too.

His ability to push the ball down the field and his mobility.

We’ll start with the deep ball. With Kirk Cousins at quarterback, they weren’t able to push the ball down the field consistently. On throws of 20 or more air yards, Kirk was 6-for-25 with three touchdowns and two interceptions.

And even though Fernando doesn’t have a Josh Allen-level arm, he was elite in that area in college. Last year at Indiana, he completed 52.7% of his passes of 20 or more air yards for 11 touchdowns and just one interception.

Yes, college and the NFL are totally different beasts, and outside of Brock Bowers, he doesn’t have good receiving options with the Raiders. But the kid should be able to push the ball down the field better than Kirk did, not only because of those stats, but also because Fernando’s tape is full of completions to contested targets downfield.

Now, again, that’s all in college and not against one of the best defensive minds in football.

We’ll get to the mobility stuff in a bit, but first, I want to contextualize just how good Mike Macdonald-led defenses have been, particularly against rookie quarterbacks.

In fact, as a defensive coordinator or head coach in the NFL, his teams are 9-1 against rookie quarterbacks. The lone loss came at the hands of Kenny Pickett. And to be fair, we’re also giving Kenny credit for a loss against Mike’s Ravens defense in 2022 when he was knocked out of the game in the first quarter with a concussion. But still, he started the game, so he gets credited with the loss.

Hat tip to Vinny Bonsignore for helping me flesh that whole part out about Macdonald’s record versus rookie QBs.

But that’s not all. Since Macdonald became the coach of the Seahawks back in 2024, they’ve allowed a league-low 217 total yards per game and 134 passing yards per game against four rookies (Bo Nix, Caleb Williams, Cam Ward, and Max Brosmer).

Now, those are totals. We’re talking about pushing the ball down the field, right? So let’s get into that.

Against Macdonald’s Seattle teams, rookie quarterbacks have averaged only 4.5 yards per pass attempt, which is the fewest allowed by any defense over that span. To put that into perspective, rookies have averaged 6.5 yards per pass attempt against all other defenses over that span, that’s a full two yards more per attempt against defenses that aren’t the Seahawks.

So it’s no easy task against this group for Fernando. Don’t freak out if he can’t push it down the field against these guys, but I think we see Klint dial it up a few more times than we’ve seen in most games now that he’s got the top pick back there instead of Kirk.

And if they’re able to hit on them, it just might force defenses to lighten up the box and open the door for that running game to get back on track.

And now let’s get to the other point: the mobility factor.

Obviously, Kirk is not a mobile quarterback, and I don’t mean this as a knock on him at all, but just about any quarterback who goes in there is going to be more mobile than Kirk.

And again, no knock on Kirk because he’s a massive reason for any success they’ve had on offense this year, but that lack of mobility limited the offense at times.

On 37 pass attempts outside of the pocket, Kirk Cousins had a -0.05 EPA per dropback, good for 17th in the NFL. Last year in Seattle, Sam Darnold had a 0.22 EPA per dropback on his 98 pass attempts outside of the pocket, which was second-best in the NFL.

So even though Fernando isn’t exactly Mike Vick-level mobile, we’ve seen him flash the ability to get outside the pocket to throw, and that will allow Kubiak to call more rollouts and bootlegs, which should make life tougher on defenses.

But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows in terms of the mobility.

Cousins took only 11 sacks with the Raiders, which is tied for the third-fewest in the league. And if you’ve been watching the games, you might have seen that a lot of that is because of his pocket awareness and getting the ball off quickly.

Fernando’s gonna need to be good in that area, or this offensive line could be exposed a bit in pass protection, in my opinion.

And if there’s one real negative about Fernando’s game, it’s the rate at which he took sacks in college.

Now, he did just watch Kirk for like seven months, and he’s gotten NFL coaching for a minute now, too. So maybe he’s improved here, but in his last season at Indiana, he had an 18.9 pressure-to-sack rate, which isn’t horrendous, but it’s not exactly great. You’d much rather see him in the 12% to 15% range.

Having said that, he did improve upon his 25.6 pressure-to-sack rate from 2024, so he’s shown the ability to grow in that area.

I’ve thrown a lot of bad news at you, so keep in mind that even though Seattle’s defense is really good, it’s not like they’re some elite unit in terms of sacks.

They’re 13th in the league in sacks, which is just better than middle of the pack, so that’s a plus for Fernando in his first start.

They also blitz at the second-lowest rate in the league, doing so just 22.6% of the time.

Now, over the years, Macdonald has cranked his blitz rate up against rookies. Since taking over in Seattle, he’s blitzed rookie QBs 29.3% of the time and held them to a 15.7% success rate when blitzing, which is the lowest rate allowed by any defense.

I’d imagine more of those blitzes will come on third downs. Those are the money downs, so Fernando will need to be on it in those situations, which is something he was really good at diagnosing in college.

Now, before we wrap this up, I want to get into one more thing Mendoza will see a lot of this week: Cover 6.

The Seahawks have played a ton of split-safety coverage this year, and in particular, they’ve run Cover 6 at the highest rate in the league (23.3%).

If you don’t know Cover 6, it’s basically a split-field zone defense that combines Cover 4 (quarters) on one side of the field with Cover 2 on the other side.

It’s tough to go against because it presents as a standard two-high shell and lends itself to coverage disguises that Fernando will have to sort through in this one.

The good thing is, Fernando has Klint Kubiak on his side, and he spent a year with Mike Macdonald, so he knows his defense.

So even though this is one hell of a test for Fernando in his first start, he’s likely set with as good of a book on said defense as you can get with Kubiak in his corner.

If you’re looking for more on the matchup, like what the Raiders’ defense will be up against this week in Seattle’s offense, check out our Thursday podcast linked above this section. Corbin K. Smith did an awesome job detailing what Seattle’s offense brings to the table.

All stats are from Next Gen Stats unless otherwise noted.

MY TAKE ON THE RETURN FOR COUSINS

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HOW THE RAIDERS CAN HELP FERNANDO

The Fernando Mendoza era is officially underway in Las Vegas! With Kirk Cousins headed to Minnesota, the Raiders are turning things over to their No. 1 overall pick. But what needs to change offensively to put Mendoza in the best position to succeed? Ryan Hoag and I break down how Klint Kubiak could adjust his offense, the challenges Mendoza will face as a rookie and how opposing defenses will try to attack him. Plus, we preview his first NFL start against the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks and discuss whether the Raiders have a shot at pulling off the upset.

FANSHOTZ FRIDAY

“FanShotz Friday”

By now, you have seen the phenomenal photos we’ve been using in many of our newsletters. They’re some of the best shots you’ll find of your favorite team, captured through the lens of our friend Arnie Bazemore of Fanshotz.com. Every Friday, we’ll feature Arnie’s favorite Raiders shot of the week that he captures at practice or on game day.

This week, we’re featuring a shot Arnie snagged of Fernando Mendoza in the preseason finale against the 49ers. It’s the last time he played in a game at Allegiant Stadium. That was the preseason, though, and this one’s for real. When the schedule dropped, we all played the game of trying to guess when we’d see him make his first start. I don’t think many of us had this game against Seattle on our bingo cards, but we’ll see what the kid is made of real quick. Also, pretty cool that his first start is coming at home, too. Should be one hell of an atmosphere.

Check out Arnie’s work at his site linked above and reach out if you’re interested in working with him. He’s a great guy and has been so supportive of me over the years when I was at NBC here in Vegas, and he’s come along for the ride with Silver & Black Sports Network, too.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Our Friday episode! Keep an eye out for it dropping later this afternoon. I’ll dive deeper into the matchups I’m watching and catch up with our guy Matt Perrault from Pushing the Odds for another edition of Raiders Rounders.

Catch ya next time,