00:00It's a good time to talk about my Raiders!
00:04Good news, bad news. What would you like first?
00:09Let's go with the bad news first, and then we'll pick it up and turn it back into a positive
00:15with the good news.
00:16Good, good. I like how we're doing this.
00:18Okay, the bad news. Kirk Cousins might not be happy right now with the Raiders,
00:22because apparently Fernando Mendoza is out there in the OTAs and absolutely turning heads left and right.
00:30Apparently, if you believe reports, and this is off of Bleacher Report, specifically James Palmer,
00:35Mendoza is blowing away the staff of Las Vegas.
00:38A solid performance from the signal caller this early points out that this team is going to be handing the
00:44responsibility of QB over to him sooner rather than later.
00:49Now, keep in mind, they did sign Kirk Cousins to a nice little contract to be the stopgap quarterback and
00:55for Mendoza to learn from.
00:56And as of now, he's supposedly penciled in to be the first day one opening day starter.
01:03But if Fernando Mendoza keeps doing this, Kirk Cousins might be finding himself in the same Michael Penix Jr. situation
01:10he found himself in just a year and a half ago.
01:13Yeah, this is a tough situation for Kirk Cousins.
01:18I think he's capable of being an NFL starter and doing a really solid job, but the noise around this
01:26is going to be super loud.
01:29Super loud.
01:29First pick overall.
01:31Yeah, I mean, if Kirk Cousins even just sneezes wrong for one quarter, the fans are going to be ready
01:39to start the dog whistling right away.
01:43Like just with, you know, wanting the team to make a change.
01:47I mean, there's a part of me that feels like Kirk Cousins might be better off like having the conversation
01:54to say we should start him first.
01:57First, I'll mentor him and show him the way.
02:00And then if he doesn't handle it well, like I'm here as a more experienced backup to like step in
02:08and get us through some hard things.
02:10Right.
02:10If you look at the Raiders schedule.
02:12Yeah, I got it right here.
02:13Yeah, the Raiders open with the Dolphins at home.
02:15Yep.
02:15At San Diego, at New Orleans.
02:17And then there's like.
02:18I love that you call them San Diego.
02:19I still call them San Diego too.
02:21Take that, Chargers.
02:22Oh, my bad.
02:22No, no, no, no.
02:24It's not your bad.
02:24That's not your bad.
02:25That is their bad.
02:27That is the Chargers bad.
02:29At the Chargers.
02:29At the Los Angeles Chargers.
02:31At SoFi Stadium.
02:32My bad.
02:33That's on me.
02:33They belong in San Diego.
02:35At New Orleans.
02:36And so, to me, even though the Chargers defensively are going to be good.
02:41Hardball teams are good defensively always.
02:44But that first three weeks is your best chance to give Fernando Mendoza an opportunity to kind
02:52of like tiptoe a little bit into the NFL at the quarterback position.
02:59I don't know if the Dolphins defensively, yeah, they're NFL players, but I don't know
03:04if their defense is going to be as elite as other teams that they're going to face.
03:08After that first three weeks, then you got the Chiefs, the Patriots, the Bills, the Rams.
03:13Tough.
03:13In a four-week stretch.
03:15That, in my opinion, if Mendoza even struggles at all, or that badly, to me, then Kirk Cousins
03:23stepping into playing against those type of teams is maybe a better situation.
03:29I can see where you're going with this.
03:31This is hard, man.
03:32My opinion is actually, believe it or not, I definitely see what you're saying here.
03:36But I'm actually going the opposite direction.
03:38Because for the opposite reason, I don't want to put Fernando Mendoza through this gauntlet.
03:44I really don't.
03:45Right out the gate, I don't want to see him against the Chiefs on October 4th.
03:49I don't want to see him against the Patriots on the 11th, or the Bills, or the Rams on the
03:5325th.
03:54I agree.
03:55However, November 1st is circled.
03:59I'm just saying, November 1st game, I have penciled in and circled of, maybe this is where we go ahead
04:06and throw Fernando out there.
04:07Because I'm more than happy to see him against the Jets.
04:10Bro, so you think in against the Dolphins week one, if Kirk Cousins has a bad first half.
04:16I know what everyone's going to do.
04:18Everyone's going to be shouting it out loud very much to get his ass out there.
04:23If the Raiders against the Chiefs in Las Vegas, October 4th.
04:27But the problem is, we know it's going to be bad.
04:29We already know the Raiders are likely going to get their asses boat raced during this run.
04:35Right?
04:36Like, listen.
04:36Like, listen.
04:37That was jingle bells.
04:39Just the other day, we did most annoying fan bases, right?
04:42Now, here's the thing.
04:42I am a part of two very annoying fan bases.
04:45A lot of us are.
04:46A lot of us here in L.A. are Laker fans and Raider fans.
04:50And yes, we at times can be annoying.
04:52But you know what?
04:53When we acknowledge how annoying we are and we look at these teams critically, we know the Raiders are going
05:00to win maybe six or seven games.
05:03The Vegas over-under is currently five and a half, so you're right on it.
05:07I'm taking the over.
05:08I think they can get six wins.
05:10However, during this gauntlet of week two to week six, I do not think they're getting one of those six
05:16wins in there.
05:19God, the Rams are going to kill them.
05:21I mean, that's tough.
05:22I mean, that's what?
05:23Week four, Chiefs.
05:24Week five, Patriots.
05:26Week six, Bills.
05:27Week seven, Rams.
05:28It's going to be brutal, man.
05:30It's going to be a brutal little gauntlet there.
05:33And by the way, just because I penciled in the Jets, it doesn't get easier after the Jets.
05:38You've got the Niners.
05:39You've got the Seahawks who are defending champions.
05:40The Broncos.
05:42We still don't really know what the Browns are going to be this season.
05:47I'm assuming they're just going to always be the Browns.
05:49But then the Chargers, Broncos.
05:50Like, there is not a lot of places for the Raiders to breathe this year except for the Titans, the
05:56Cardinals, and the Jets.
05:57And even those are not 100% that they're going to win these games.
06:02I have no idea what this Raider team is going to look like.
06:05They made great moves this offseason.
06:08They brought in the head coach they supposedly really wanted.
06:10But we'll see.
06:12Can they get six wins?
06:14I would call it a victory and a half if they got six wins this season.
06:20Yeah, which makes, again, evaluating your quarterback is harder under those circumstances and scenarios as well.
06:28So if your team overall isn't solid, strong positionally, if you don't have good defense that can anchor your offense
06:39when, you know, so that you can limit your ability to have to take risks, right?
06:44It's like all of that kind of factors into evaluating the position.
06:48So if Fernando Mendoza is playing the quarterback position, or even Kirk Cousins, let's start with, okay, he's QB1.
06:57It's hard to even evaluate whether he's doing a good job or not because if he's having to try to
07:02make plays to score 38 points
07:06because the defense can't get stops, that's a different way of playing the position.
07:10I mean, it was the same thing that Derek Carr had to do for all those years with the Raiders.
07:13Yeah, so all of that, you know, kind of factors into it.
07:17It's just going to be tough for Cousins.
07:20You know, I mean, the Raiders, it's, I mean, Vegas is a small market population-wise,
07:28but the Raiders are a global brand.
07:33So then the conversation around what's going on with them is going to be still pretty loud.
07:40So hopefully Kirk Cousins learned from the experience in Atlanta because that's what life is really doing.
07:46It's like we're taking quizzes and tests all the time to prepare us for quizzes and tests that are going
07:53to come down the line.
07:54And so hopefully his experience with the Falcons and Michael Penix and how that happened has prepared him for what
08:04the experience is going to be like in Vegas.
08:06And he'll not only be prepared for himself and his own experience,
08:10but he'll be able to share some things with Mendoza that will help him with his transition into the league
08:15as well.
08:16That being said, I said good news and bad news.
08:17We opened with the bad news, the good news.
08:19Fernando Mendoza looks great, apparently, and, and don't feel too bad for Kirk Cousins because he has made $341.4
08:29million guaranteed.
08:35Oh, there's no bad news there.
08:37No, he's fine.
08:39He's good, he's good, man.
08:41There's no bad news.
08:42There is no bad news whatsoever.
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