Raiders wake up to big Fernando Mendoza day with NFL Draft originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
It's Thursday, April 23, which means the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft will take place in the evening. And the Raiders are, more or less, on the clock.
They've got the No. 1 overall pick, which they "earned" by being the worst team in the league in 2025.
It comes at the right time for the franchise. They need a quarterback, and there available is Indiana's Fernando Mendoza.
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Mendoza was a relative unknown heading into the 2025 college football season. All he did from there was lead the Hoosiers to a national title while also claiming the Heisman Trophy.
Occasionally, star college QBs will have a game that doesn't look like it'll translate to the NFL. Mendoza isn't one of those guys, though.
He's been the unquestioned QB1 in this draft class for a while, and when you're the top quarterback available, you have a great chance of going with the first overall pick.
The Raiders admitted earlier this offseason that they've gotten calls about teams trading for their spot, but they likely never had serious consideration to that. There's only one spot in this draft where they could take Mendoza, and that's the spot they already have.
Is there some alternate universe where the Raiders shock all of football and take someone else? Maybe. But that's not this universe.
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There won't be a whole lot of suspense when the Raiders go on the clock Thursday night. The only question will be how long they take to actually submit their pick officially.
The draft, in a lot of ways, starts with the No. 2 pick, because everyone knows what the Raiders are going to do.
That doesn't make it a less important night for Vegas, though. They're getting the guy they hope to be their franchise quarterback. There's nothing more important in sports than that.
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