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Raiders Mailbag: Should the Raiders draft for the trenches?

Adam H. from California asks:

"How many games do you think Kirk Cousins starts?"

Well Adam, while you've asked a good question, it's tricky to answer considering the variables.

Let's state the obvious: Kirk Cousins has started a lot of games in his career. 167 to be exact. And of those starts, he's compiled 88 wins with 44,700 passing yards and 298 touchdowns in his career, all ranking in the top 10 among active quarterbacks.

So yes, it seems Cousins is perfectly capable of taking over as the Raiders starting quarterback. But could we see quarterback battle with Fernando Mendoza if Las Vegas select him with the No. 1 overall pick in two weeks?

From what Raiders brass has been saying this offseason, they're not putting any young quarterback in a compromising situation with their development. Hence signing a veteran QB who already has a strong relationship with the Raiders head coach.

"I think ideally you don't want him to start from day one. You'd love him to be able to learn behind somebody," Klint Kubiak said at the Annual League Meeting of starting a rookie quarterback. "That's in a perfect world. I know. Like I said before, it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes they have to play from day one, and it's our job as a coach to get them ready to go. I think it does help the player, though, if they can sit behind a mature adult and watch how they run the show."

It also must be taken into account that while Mendoza is heavily projected to be a No. 1 pick, you can't count your chickens before they've hatched. We see shocking moves happen in the NFL Draft every year.

Therefore, until we have more answers – there's no way anyone could predict how many starts Cousins sees with the Raiders. Not even Cousins himself can make that prediction at the moment.

"Honestly I don't want to start unless I'm the best option, and I told Klint that," Cousins said on Good Morning Football Wednesday morning. "The best player should play, but certainly as long as that's the case, I have no qualms with however it plays out."

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