The Las Vegas Raiders don't seem to be leaving a lot of suspense for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.
All indications are that they'll be taking Indiana's Fernando Mendoza, who won both the Heisman Trophy and the national title in the 2025 season with the Hoosiers.
Almost everyone seems to be in agreement that Mendoza is the top quarterback in this draft class, and the Raiders certainly need a QB. Sometimes, it's that simple.
Mendoza is a really good football player who kept getting better throughout his college career.
ESPN's Bill Connelly does have one warning for the Raiders, though, and it's this: Mendoza may take a lot more hits than they'd like.
"Mendoza's ability to learn from mistakes was otherworldly, but when a team was able to pressure him, it could surprise him a bit," Connelly wrote in a new article on Thursday. "The national average for the ratio of sacks to pressures was 17.2% in 2024-25 -- meaning, basically one in six pressures turned into sacks on average -- but Mendoza far exceeded that (in a bad way) both years. His ratio was 25.3% as he took 41 sacks at Cal in 2024, and though he was protected far better at Indiana in 2025 (his pressure rate fell from 38.4% to 28.3%), he still took 25 sacks with a 22.5% sacks-to-pressures ratio."
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Connelly points out that recent QBs Caleb Williams and Kyler Murray have actually broken this trend, but that Joe Burrow and Cam Ward carried their college tendency to get hit into the NFL.
Burrow particularly feels like a worthy comparison. He and Mendoza have some QB similarities, and Burrow takes way too many hits, not all due to Cincinnati's offensive line. Injuries have followed Burrow through his career, in part because of this tendency.
This won't be enough to stop the Raiders from taking Mendoza, and if he handles himself well, it may not even turn out to be a major issue.
But it's something to keep an eye on with the potential face of the franchise in Vegas. They'll need to try and keep him upright.
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