NFL Insider Tom Pelissero Breaks Down League’s Most Heated QB Competitions

If you drafted a quarterback in the first round and expected him to start in September, Tom Pelissero has bad news about at least one of them.

Rich asked whether the Raiders belong in the quarterback competition conversation. Pelissero did not hedge.

"I would be very surprised if Fernando Mendoza starts out of the gate," the NFL insider told Rich. Klint Kubiak said back in the spring that he believes in letting a young quarterback sit, and Pelissero says nothing has changed since.

The reasoning is about the transition, not the talent. Mendoza is coming from an Indiana offense that Pelissero described as heavily RPO based, throwing into wide open windows, rarely under center. "There's a bunch of things he has to get better at," Pelissero said, and Las Vegas brought in Kirk Cousins, who already has history with Kubiak, to buy him the runway.

The other half of it is the roster around him. Pelissero pointed to Ashton Jeanty at running back and Brock Bowers at tight end as genuine pieces, but flagged the wide receiver roles as unsettled and the offensive line as a work in progress. "That's as much a reflection of where the Raiders are programmatically as anything to do with Fernando Mendoza."

He also offered a nice detail about how insulated the decision is. If Mendoza plays well in a preseason game, everybody will be talking about it and Kubiak will get the questions. He just will not be reading them. "Clint's not on social media. He's not watching this show. He's not watching ESPN."

Rich immediately turned that into a service announcement for Chris, who has spent the week accidentally becoming famous for insulting athletes on the internet. If Kubiak is not online, there is no juice in that squeeze.

The actual competitions live in Atlanta, Cleveland and Minnesota, plus a set of health situations worth watching. Pelissero said Bo Nix is on track for Denver and that Patrick Mahomes keeps saying he will be ready for Kansas City in week one, with Justin Fields the obvious answer if that changes.

Minnesota is the one Pelissero has been told repeatedly is legitimate. Kyler Murray and J.J. McCarthy split reps 50/50 through the spring, and while Pelissero believes Kevin O'Connell already knows who would start if a game were played tomorrow, no game is played tomorrow. Part of it is psychological, keeping both quarterbacks attacking every day rather than relaxing. He does not expect it to stretch across three preseason games, but one or two feels right.

Atlanta has barely started because Michael Penix Jr. has not done anything yet. He will get back to 11 on 11 work at some point, Pelissero said, but that time is not immediate.

Cleveland is the one Pelissero thinks people are underrating. Deshaun Watson is in the final year of a five-year, $230 million contract and will be on the roster. He has also played 19 games over the past five seasons combined. "There's no precedent for anything like that."

The unknown is not what Watson was. It is what he is now, in live action, with people heckling him and everything moving faster.

Shedeur Sanders, meanwhile, genuinely improved through the spring, according to what Pelissero has been told. Whether that is enough to catch Watson is the question, but the new staff under Todd Monken came away believing they have two quarterbacks they can win with.

"This is a true competition I believe as well in Cleveland," Pelissero said, "and we'll see who comes out on the top in the preseason."