Tom Pelissero: Why Raiders are Better Off Starting Kirk Cousins over Mendoza

Tom Pelissero laid out the case for the Raiders starting Kirk Cousins over rookie Fernando Mendoza in Week 1, and he did it by walking through the schedule one road game at a time.

After Miami in Week 1, the Raiders run a stretch that includes the Chargers, Saints, Chiefs, Patriots, Bills, and Rams. The over/under for wins by the bye, Pelissero suggested, is more likely 2.5 than 3.5.

"That is a brutal stretch for a Raiders team that has so much work to do to get things headed in the right direction," Pelissero told Rich.

Throwing a rookie into the front-loaded gauntlet, in Pelissero's read, is the wrong call. Head coach Clint Kubiak has said publicly he prefers a veteran starter, particularly for a quarterback making a major scheme transition. Mendoza, who came out of college in RPO-heavy offenses where he rarely operated under center, is exactly that kind of transition case.

The case for Cousins is not built on Cousins's physical talent.

"He is not that talented," Pelissero said. "I like him as a human, so I don't mean this as a shot. But he's so smart and he processes at such a high level, the mental can overcome the physical."

That high-IQ profile is, in Pelissero's view, exactly what Mendoza needs to watch. Cousins knows the Kubiak system as well as anyone alive. He could coach it. He runs it pre-snap and post-snap with an accuracy that few quarterbacks in the league can match. For a rookie with more upside but less polish, the value of watching Cousins win games with his brain is higher than the value of getting Mendoza early reps in a roster environment that is going to bleed losses anyway.

Pelissero invoked the Tom Brady precedent. Brady sat his rookie year. For Mendoza, the analogue holds.

The supporting roster argument is real too. Ashton Jeanty is on the team. Brock Bowers is on the team. The Raiders added at receiver. The offensive line, in Pelissero's words, "can't get much worse," and the new offensive line coach is a real upgrade. The play calling, with Kubiak now running the offense, will not have the same self-inflicted issues that plagued the Chip Kelly era from a year ago.

The structural conclusion was direct.

"Unless Kirk gets hurt or falls on his face, you're starting the season with Kirk Cousins," Pelissero said.

The competition will get real conversation. Pelissero just does not believe Mendoza wins it.

To borrow a James Winston line and invert it, someone has to eat those L's in the first half of the Raiders schedule. Pelissero thinks the right person to feed them is the quarterback who has done it before and walked away upright.