BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Presumed top NFL draft pick Fernando Mendoza will be back on his college campus Wednesday to go through a series of drills and will most likely look very good doing it.
That’s the entire design of a pro day, which Mendoza will participate in back on his college campus at Indiana in front of a throng of scouts and NFL executives.
General manager John Spytek, whose team owns the top pick, expects the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback will look very comfortable.
“I’ve been to a lot of quarterback pro days in my career,” he said. “Most of them, for the guys that are good players, are really good.”
That’s because the drills will be designed in a way that best showcases Mendoza’s skills to show he is worthy of being the No. 1 overall pick.
Spytek will lead a large contingent from the Las Vegas Raiders to the event, where they will also get a chance to meet up with Mendoza off the field.
“We’ll go there and watch him throw the football and get a little bit of a chance to spend some time with them and visit with them a little bit more than we have,” Spytek said.
Done their homework
The Raiders already know plenty about Mendoza.
They have scoured the film and sent several high-ranking executives, including Spytek, Tom Brady and Mark Davis to the national championship game to watch Mendoza complete a perfect season by leading the Hoosiers past Miami for the CFP title.
But the No. 1 pick is a massive investment, and the Raiders want to take every possible opportunity to make sure they get it right.
That involves more than just watching game film to see how they perform in 5-second spurts.
“You get to know them so well on film, there probably shouldn’t be too many surprises by the time you get to that pro day,” coach Klint Kubiak said. ‘But seeing somebody throw the ball live and seeing the velocity with which it comes off their wrist and how accurate they are and how they interact with the teammates they’re throwing the ball to and whether being around scouts and GMs and coaches makes them nervous.
“Being able to see what their demeanor is like in a pressure situation is valuable.”
A more important part of the process may come next week when Mendoza is scheduled to visit the team’s facility in Henderson.
“We’ve had a couple touch points at this point, but we are looking forward to getting on campus and seeing him operate in this building and have that be a big part of the evaluation,” Spytek said. “They spend a lot of time with the coaches, just trying to see how intelligent they are, how well they understand the game.
“But to me, a big part of it too is just watching them move through the building, how they treat people, just having good conversations with them, to get to know them a little bit better and decide, like, can we see them being a part of our team, or is it maybe just not a great fit?”
All about the basics
Of course, the nuts and bolts still matter.
A quarterback selected at the top of the draft will essentially hold the keys to the fate of that franchise for the next five years or even longer.
If they prove to be worthy of that lofty status, an organization is set up for long-term success.
A swing and a miss on such a move, however, could mean years of futility.
Or, in the Raiders case, status quo.
That’s why teams tend to dive so deep into every aspect of top quarterback prospects.
Spytek wants to know as much as he can about a player like Mendoza, who by all accounts is as upstanding a citizen as he is a talent on the field.
Opportunities to interact with the player at situations like pro day and pre-draft visits offer valuable chances to gather intel.
“There’s no exact science to it, but I love talking to anybody from the person that picked them up at the airport to the person that showed them around the building,” Spytek said. “Like, how did they move through the building? How did they treat people? That all goes into that evaluation.”
Of course, the way a quarterback actually throws the ball still matters and NFL teams including the Raiders will see that from Mendoza on Wednesday after he chose not to throw at the combine last month.
“Well,” Spytek said. “The football part of it is always critical.”
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.