NFL Network’s Kurt Warner on the Proper Timeline for Raiders to Start Mendoza

The question in Las Vegas is no longer whether Fernando Mendoza plays. It's when. Rich put it to NFL Network's Kurt Warner on The Rich Eisen Show, noting that the Raiders appear to be nearing a decision about when to get Mendoza's feet wet.

"I think it's coming," Warner said.

His framework starts with a simple question every struggling team eventually has to answer: when is the season lost? Warner pointed out that the Raiders started 3-0 and have since dropped a number of games. The schedule ahead, he argued, is the test that will decide it.

"Obviously they probably think we can beat the Jets," Warner said. "But you know, San Francisco and Denver and those quality football teams. Let's gauge our team, Seattle. Let's gauge our team against those teams."

If the Raiders can't compete with that group, Warner said, the standings don't matter much. "That's to me the time where you start to go, okay, is it time to kind of speed this thing up and get Fernando out there," he said, and let the veterans know the team gave it a run but has "fallen out of the mix for the playoffs."

The hard part, in Warner's view, isn't the young quarterback. It's the locker room. "The hardest part is the veterans, the Maxx Crosbys of your locker room," he said.

Warner spoke from experience. He recalled the reaction when "that move was made in New York," and how many veterans came to him confused. "What are we doing? Like we're a playoff team now. We've got a shot," he remembered them saying. "You never know once you get into the dance what you're capable of. I don't have many opportunities."

That's the tension any coaching staff has to manage. "You don't want to throw away any season in the NFL because careers are too short and opportunities are short," Warner said.

But once the writing is on the wall, he argued, the conversation gets easier. "Once they can see the writing on the wall that, hey, we're not a team that can push for anything, it's much easier to sell to the locker room."

Warner credited the Raiders for being competitive with Kirk Cousins under center, and suggested that this stretch was about finding out exactly how good that version of the team really is. If reality has set in that the Raiders are an average team rather than a championship one, the calculus changes.

"Now you have to start weighing all of those things," Warner said, "and say, okay, when's the right time where we still believe we can have our veterans compete and push forward and fight for Fernando Mendoza while making the move to build towards the future."

His bottom line was patient but clear. The time is coming, and the next couple of weeks will tell the Raiders where they really stand.