It was the fourth quarter of a 45-17 blowout in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Kirk Cousins had just had the worst game of his season. The Raiders were losing badly enough that the outcome had been settled for about an hour. And with 6:06 left on the clock, Klint Kubiak sent Fernando Mendoza onto the field for his first NFL snaps.
Six completions on eight attempts. 48 yards. An 89.6 passer rating. Two first downs moved. A red-zone drive that stalled one yard short of a fourth-down conversion. Then the game ended, the Raiders walked off with a 3-3 record on the season, and Mendoza had his first regular-season experience at the highest level of professional football.
That is not the way anyone draws it up. It is also probably fine.
What Actually Happened Against the Patriots
Cousins had entered Sunday’s game in New England with 11 touchdown passes, the most in the NFL at that point in the season. The Patriots sacked him three times and the offense never found rhythm. By the time Kubiak went to Mendoza, the Raiders were down by 28 and Cousins had clearly had a day to forget.
What Mendoza showed in his six minutes of action was coherent if modest. He did not panic behind a compromised offensive line. He did not try to do too much. He moved through his reads, made some throws, missed some throws, got stopped short on fourth down in the red zone, and handled the moment with the quiet confidence that Indiana fans watched him display all last season.
His last meaningful football before Sunday was the College Football Playoff national championship game in January, when he led the Hoosiers to a 27-21 win over Miami and Carson Beck. That is a long gap. That is also exactly why Kubiak spent the first six weeks of the season keeping him behind Cousins rather than exposing him to the compressed learning curve of starting quarterback responsibilities on a team still building its offensive line chemistry.
Mendoza said afterward that he wants to use every rep to evaluate and improve. Kubiak said Cousins will start next week against Buffalo. The plan, in other words, has not changed.
3-3 Is a Complicated Record for a Rebuilding Team
The Raiders were supposed to be bad this year. Their win total entering the season was set at 5.5, with oddsmakers essentially saying this is a team that finishes below .500 as it installs a new coaching staff and integrates a rookie quarterback it plans to develop rather than throw to the wolves.
They won their first three games. Then they lost to the Patriots 45-17. Before that they had also lost two straight, meaning their 3-3 record conceals a current three-game losing streak and raises the question of whether the early season wins overstated where this team actually is.
The honest answer is probably yes. The Raiders’ first three opponents included the Dolphins in a rebuild of their own, plus two other teams that were struggling early. The Patriots game was a more rigorous test of where the offense stands, and the answer was that Cousins had a bad day and the protection around him was inconsistent. Those are correctable problems on a team with a genuine investment in its offensive line, including center Tyler Linderbaum and a healthy Kolton Miller at left tackle. They are also problems that have been present in more form in previous weeks and that the Raiders managed around.
The Kubiak Patience Plan Remains Intact
The most interesting sentence from the postgame wasn’t anything Mendoza or Kubiak said. It was the absence of any suggestion from anyone inside the organization that the 45-17 loss changes the timeline for Mendoza’s role.
Six weeks in, Cousins has 11 touchdown passes and has been generally reliable. He had a bad Sunday against a Patriots team that knows how to rattle veteran quarterbacks. Kubiak’s calculation, consistent from the day he was hired, is that Mendoza needs a stable environment to develop from and that Cousins provides that environment. One blowout loss against New England does not change the math on that.
What it does do is add a new data point. Mendoza handled his six minutes cleanly enough that Kubiak knows the moment won’t overwhelm him. That matters. When the time comes for the transition, whether in Week 10 or Week 14 or next season, Kubiak can point to Sunday’s performance and say the quarterback processes information the right way under NFL speed and pressure.
Running back Ashton Jeanty, the 2025 first-round pick who had his rushing production largely wasted by last year’s dysfunction, has been a different story under Kubiak’s system. The offense runs more variety. The play-action sets that made Darnold productive in Minnesota create better angles for a back with Jeanty’s burst. That is not incidental. The running game affects the passing game affects how much a young quarterback is asked to carry on his own, and the Raiders appear to be building these pieces in the right sequence.
What the Rest of the Season Actually Means
The Raiders have a Week 7 bye coming, which Kubiak has said will be used for evaluation and rest. After that, the schedule hardens with the 49ers in Week 9 and several AFC West games in December. Those are the games that will tell the real story of whether Kubiak’s first year has established a foundation or simply masked the scale of the rebuild with a few early wins.
The Mendoza question will answer itself on its own timeline. He is 21 years old. His last competitive game before Sunday was a national championship. His coaching staff has demonstrated it understands quarterback development at the highest level. His minority-owner mentor won seven Super Bowls and has been directly involved in shaping the offensive environment around him.
The Raiders lost by 28 in Foxborough. Fernando Mendoza played six minutes and went 6-for-8. The plan is still the plan. In Las Vegas, where patience with football teams has historically been in short supply, that is actually a reasonable place to be at 3-3.
Key Insights
Mendoza’s 6-of-8 debut in garbage time of a blowout loss is structurally optimal for a developing quarterback: real-speed NFL reps against a defense no longer in its maximum effort mode, low-stakes enough to process cleanly, high-profile enough to evaluate baseline competency under actual game conditions, with Kubiak immediately confirming Cousins remains the starter and removing any ambiguity about the timeline.
The Raiders’ 3-3 record, combining a three-game winning streak against soft early-season competition with a current two-game losing streak including a 28-point blowout, suggests the franchise is developing on schedule for a team installing a new system rather than overperforming expectations, which matters because the danger in early winning is organizational impatience that accelerates Mendoza’s timeline before the blocking and system are ready.
Cousins absorbing a bad game against New England serves the development plan: every rougher stretch Cousins weathers is a week Mendoza spends watching film and practicing without the public and organizational pressure that comes with being the named starter of a team that is visibly struggling, and the Patriots’ pass rush specifically provided useful data about where the offensive line still needs work before Mendoza steps in permanently.
The bye in Week 7, followed by the 49ers in Week 9 and a closing stretch against AFC West opponents, gives Kubiak a natural evaluation window that should produce clarity on the Mendoza transition timing without forcing a decision based on any single bad performance.
Sources
The Score: Mendoza NFL Debut
Field Level Media: Mendoza Did a Good Job in Debut
NBC Sports: When Will Mendoza Start
Your Valley: Mendoza Blowout Loss
